


the weight of us

by princessarcade



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Flashbacks, Friendship, Major Original Character(s), Male-Female Friendship, Multi, Mystery Character(s), Past Relationship(s), also steroline, bonnie is the greatest friend damon will ever have
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 12:17:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7976548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessarcade/pseuds/princessarcade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s the Auguste home. It was broken into this morning.” </p><p>Damon says nothing. For about two seconds, he doesn’t breathe. Then, he spreads his arms out and smiles. </p><p>“Okay, so?” he asks the same time Bonnie asks, “Auguste?” </p><p>Stefan frowns and steps closer, holding out his phone to reveal a set of texts exchanged between Hero Hair himself and their resident wanna-be police officer. </p><p>Damon grabs the phone and scrolls through, catching a few words here and there: ‘female suspect’, ‘brunette’, and ‘adept at combat’. He’s expressionless until he sees the final text - it’s an image. He nearly drops the phone before Bonnie takes it from him. </p><p>“It’s … a ring,” Bonnie says, but she sounds far away. </p><p>“Is it her?” he hears himself ask. Stefan shrugs. </p><p>“Why don’t we go and find out?” </p><p>-</p><p>Someone from the Salvatore past comes waltzing into their lives once more. Damon and Stefan have a sister. Otherworldly things happen. The usual strange happenings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "return"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There the young man stood, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. The rain had intensified upon their entrance, so she could not make out his face but for a moment she could have sworn him to be looking at her concentratedly.
> 
>  
> 
> “Daniela?”
> 
>  
> 
> She turned to face her friend.

 

  _July 10th, 1859_

 

"Your father doesn't like me very much, I think," she whispered. Damon stepped closer to her and smiled. This time, it wasn't boyish or playful.   
  
It was honest. Pure.   
  
"I don't care," he said and glanced down toward her hand. He reached for it, but didn't get very far before Daniela took his hand, interlacing their fingers. She inhaled softly. She'd never touched him like this before.   
  
"You don't care about a lot of things, Damon," she whispered, lifting her gaze to search his. Uncertainty welled up inside her.   
  
Damon looked at her quietly, then he blinked his gaze away, drawing his hand back to his side. Daniela bit her tongue. She had been mistaken. Of cour --   
  
His lips were sweeter than berries. Sweeter than home. His lips moved against hers. She could _hear_ his smile without having to open her eyes. (When did she close them?)   
  
"I care about _you_."

 

_April 22nd, 1951_

 

Raindrops didn’t dance. They didn’t land gracefully. They weren’t nimble. They assaulted the blue surface of her umbrella. They were as vicious as the thunderstorm of which they were the first line of offense. Her brown hair whipped about, making it difficult to see.

 

The train was forty-five minutes late.

 

“Forty-six,” her companion muttered. She looked up sharply and glared at him. “Sorry,” he said quickly, holding his scarred hands up in a gesture of apology. The young woman’s lips twitched, threatening to pull up into a lazy smile.

 

“Well, we’re not in very much of a hurry,” she said quietly, her chin dipping down toward her chest as she glanced down at her shoes. They were drenched, glistening with water droplets.

 

“Couldn’t you do something about this?” the man next to her asked airily, flourishing his hand some toward the train track. The brunette blinked, following the direction of his movement and laughed. Her laugh didn’t last long.

 

“The train being late? I’m afraid even _I_ can’t stop time, sir,” she replied, the corners of her eyes crinkling. Her friend harrumphed and rolled his eyes. They were greener in the rain.

 

“I don’t mean the train. I mean this awful rain. I’m getting my favourite coat wet,” he sighed. The woman swallowed down a laugh and shook her head. Her hair was curling now, some tresses having fallen to frame her face despite having been tucked in underneath her hat.

 

“There are worse things than getting wet, sir,” she said, twirling the umbrella some in her hand before a loud clang echoed in the air. The woman spun around, gaze falling on a young man - also soaked - who appeared to have jumped over the railing to get onto the platform. Her brow knit together -

 

At last, the train had come. It rattled and rattled, bringing with it a sudden cool gust. It slowed to a stop, then, and the woman smiled at her companion.

 

Once they settled into their compartment, she looked out the window.

 

There the young man stood, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. The rain had intensified upon their entrance, so she could not make out his face but for a moment she could have sworn him to be looking at her concentratedly.

 

“Daniela?”

 

She turned to face her friend.

 

The train rattled forward and she thought no more of the dark-haired man standing in the rain.

  


_September 25th, 2015 - 3 hours ago_

 

She dismounts the motorcycle and pulls off her helmet, revelling in the fresh air. Her lips part as she inhales the familiar scent of hickory and pine. _Home_ , she thinks, but then she dismisses the thought.

 

This was never home.

The porch creaks as she steps toward the front door. Half of it is painted carelessly. The red is all wrong. Daniela chews on her lip. Her mother would have hated this - how someone simply abandoned the door in its unfinished state.

 

Hand curling around the doorknob, she opens the door slowly and walks in.

 

This could have been home.

  


_August 7th, 1851_

 

“What do you think, my _adorato_?” Alfeo hoisted his daughter up onto his shoulders, ignoring the slightly-disapproving-but-mostly-amused look on his wife’s face as he did so. “Is this a good home for us?” He walked up to the base of an intricately carved staircase, past the foyer, and set her down on the first step. “Take a good look.”

 

His daughter grinned, the corners of her eyes crinkling. She touched the end of one of her braided pigtails, licking her lips in consideration as she surveyed all that was before her. It was certainly spacious, and her father had requested that their house be reminiscent of the one they had in Florence.

 

It was almost embarrassing how much it resembled their home in Italy.

 

Almost.

 

Mostly, it was just a warm reminder of the lives they had led there. They were good lives. Daniela pressed her lips together before looking toward her mother and the boy who stood at her side. Leon.

 

Really, he wasn’t much of a boy anymore. Already, he was competing against Alfeo in height and his shoulders were getting broader and broader. And his voice had grown deeper. Lower.

 

“You like it, don’t you?” Leon asked now, grinning his mother’s grin - crooked.

 

“I suppose so,” Daniela answered, her smile matching his.

 

Alfeo wrapped an arm around his wife. Clara exhaled, seeming to glow with content.

 

“It’s perfect, my love,” she said gently.

 

Daniela beamed. It was home.

 

_September 25th, 2015 - now_

 

He almost forgot how time moved. Had it really been a year since he was trapped in the Gemini prison world with a girl he never thought he’d call his best friend? Had it really been 151 years since he died? Since that pathetic, lovesick, human boy let the life ebb out of him in soil and shame? Damon shifts his jaw and takes another swig of his drink, squinting at nothing in particular.

 

Bonnie, of course, notices.

 

“You okay?” she asks, voice not softening. She’s not gentle with him, never walking on eggshells or tiptoeing around the problem when it concerns him. Half of the time - more than, technically - he _is_ the problem.

 

“I’m dandy, Bon-bon.” He doesn’t turn to look at the witch. He runs a hand through his hair. It’s lank. He should probably shower. He blames all the drama revolving around his mother and Alaric - he’s really letting himself go.

 

He doesn’t blame Elena.

 

He won’t.

 

“ _O_ -kay,” Bonnie replies and moves to take a sip from his glass. He can feel her eyes lingering on him and he smirks before snatching the glass from her hand and downing the rest of the bourbon.

 

There was a time alcohol used to burn his throat.

 

Now, it’s a balm.

 

“I’m fine. I’m _touched_ that you’re concerned.” He rolls his eyes, and presses his hand gently over his heart. That earns him a laugh. The corner of his mouth slides up, his lips curling in a half-smile that would look awkward on anyone else but him. “Were you ever good at history? Or did Alaric bore the crap out of you in that class, too?”

 

Bonnie pauses, narrowing her eyes at him.

 

“I know what today is, Damon,” she says. That doesn’t surprise him. Bonnie’s good with dates. That, and he prattled on about his life for a good six months. She was bound to retain some details that she may or may not have wanted to retain.

 

“Yeah,” he sighs as he picks up the second bottle. It’s half-empty. His fingers dance along the rim of its mouth.

 

“Are you --” Bonnie stops. Damon lifts his head, looking at her for the first time in fifteen minutes. The back of her head is turned to him. He follows the direction in which she’s looking.

 

 _It’s just Stefan_ , he thinks, as his little brother walks in through the door. But that thought is quickly followed by: _aw, crap_.

 

“What’s up, hero hair? You look particularly distressed. Trouble in paradise with Carebear?”

 

Usually, Stefan would at least glare at him for that.

 

“It’s the Auguste home. It was broken into this morning.”

 

Damon says nothing. For about two seconds, he doesn’t breathe. Then, he spreads his arms out and smiles.

 

“Okay, so?” he asks the same time Bonnie asks, “Auguste?”

 

Stefan frowns and steps closer, holding out his phone to reveal a set of texts exchanged between Hero Hair himself and their resident wanna-be police officer.

 

Damon grabs the phone and scrolls through, catching a few words here and there: ‘female suspect’, ‘brunette’, and ‘adept at combat’. He’s expressionless until he sees the final text - it’s an image. He nearly drops the phone before Bonnie takes it from him.

 

“It’s … a ring,” Bonnie says, but she sounds far away.

 

“Is it her?” he hears himself ask. Stefan shrugs.

 

“Why don’t we go and find out?”

 

_September 25th, 2015 - 15 minutes later_

 

“So, do you want to tell me who ‘her’ is?” Bonnie’s resting her feet on the dashboard. Damon hates it when she does this. (Bonnie knows that he hates this and takes great pleasure in doing it just for that reason). The pads of his fingers burn against the steering wheel.

 

“It should be nobody,” he says, in an almost accusatory tone. He fixes his gaze on the road and clears his throat. “I mean, she should be dead.”

 

Silence settles between them both. Bonnie’s stare is practically scalding.

 

“What?” he snaps.

 

“Nothing,” she says quickly. Calmly. “You just seem … like you do when it comes to Elena. It’s _kinda_ weird.”

 

Damon swallows.

 

“Yeah, well.”

 

His phone vibrates. He glances over at Bonnie, and she answers.

 

“Yeah, Caroline? Are you and Stefan already there?” Bonnie’s voice remains calm and Damon furrows his brow. How does she do it? Her voice tightens, however, when she speaks again. “Okay. We’ll be there in two minutes.” She sets the phone down in her lap and folds her hands.

 

“What is it?”

 

“The house seems to be sealed off now,” she says. “Whoever this is - she doesn’t want anyone interrupting her.”

 

-

_September 25th, 2015 - 5 minutes earlier_

 

Her breathing has evened out, finally. She hadn’t been shot since 1943, in Paris. Her friend had helped her, then. For some reason the gunshot wouldn’t heal.

 

“It must have been coated in dark magic,” he told her. She yelped as he pressed his hands against her skin. “Relax. The pain will subside soon.”

 

It didn’t subside for two hours.

 

She’s lucky; the pain only lasted for a few short minutes. The boy who shot her had looked so young. Fear made his face look even fresher. He had been bewildered when she vanished. If he knew of the supernatural, which she guesses he did, he likely would think her to be a witch using a cloaking spell.

 

Maybe, if things had panned out differently, she would have been a witch.

 

“Hello?” a female voice calls out from below. Daniela trudges toward the window, pressing her lips together as she concentrates on not being seen. The girl standing beside her motorcycle is blonde. Pretty. A stranger. The figure next to her is as pretty but entirely too familiar.

 

“Stefan,” she breathes and her fingers tingle as she brings up a wall of invisibility.

 

So much for a quiet visit.

  


_September 25th, 2015 - now_

 

They nearly crash into a pine tree as they near where the house stands. Or should stand. Damon has barely parked the car before he’s scrambling out clumsily. Caroline eyes him with surprise. Bonnie and Stefan merely glare at him.

 

“Did you see her?”

 

Both Stefan and Caroline shake their heads, though now the girls are looking at him quizzically. Damon marches up to the motorcycle, frowning. He wishes he could be sure it was her just by this. But it’s been so long and, well, she _might_ be into motorcycles. Who knows? He grimaces.

 

“Where’s the ring?” he demands, looking between his brother and his brother’s girlfriend. He extends his hand out, expression impatient. Expectant.

 

Caroline fishes it out of her jean pocket and places it carefully onto his palm.

 

Damon barely looks at it.

 

“It’s hers.”

 

_August 9th, 1859_

 

“My father had this fashioned for me,” she whispered, biting back her smile, “for when I was born.” Damon watched her, tracing circles with his thumbs on her wrists. She held out the ring to him.

 

It was a brilliant silver and lined with the shapes of tulips. He smirked.

 

“Of course,” he said, and kissed her curled fingers the way she had kissed his last night. In response, she smiled sheepishly at him.

 

“I told you tulips are my favourite.”

 

“I know. I remember, Dani,” he replied. “I think it’s lovely. That you adore tulips. And that your father adores you.” He’d been practicing on how not to sound envious of that, and he has nearly perfected it. Alfeo was a far better father than his own, after all.

 

If anything, Alfeo was leagues more legitimate as a father than Giuseppe.

 

“The ring is supposed to protect me from harm,” Dani said now, voice louder than before. He grinned and kissed her cheek, something in him soaring as her cheeks warmed. Her skin was rosy red now. He kissed it redder. She let out a laugh. “Damon. I’m trying to tell you about my most prized possession.”

 

“And I’m trying to kiss mine.”

 

“I’m not yours to own,” she said, lips tight in a frown but eyes nearly smiling.

 

“You’re right, I’m yours,” he said. “To own, I mean.”

 

She snorted at that.

 

“You’re an awful romantic,” she whispered and kissed his brow, raking her fingers through his rich curls.

 

“You make me less awful.”

 

“I know,” Daniela said, and leaned back against the tree trunk.

 

“If that ring fails you, I won’t,” Damon said after a pause. Daniela didn’t laugh this time. She furrowed her brow.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I mean,” Damon said quickly, straightening some. “I mean that I want to protect you. For life. I want to do more than that, really. I want to … I want to be yours. For --”

 

“Life?” Daniela’s voice was smaller than a whisper. Damon was silent. He looked down at their hands, then picked up the tulip ring and held it out to the brunette.

 

“I was going to wait until your real birthday. Until tomorrow,” he said.

 

“Damon.”

 

“You were right - I don’t care about a lot of things. I only care about what matters the most to me. It’s just - that is how I function,” he continued, voice shaky. “But I do care about you. I care about you more than I’ve cared about anyone. More than I’m likely to care for anyone else.”

 

“You don’t know that,” Daniela said with a certainty that pricked at his heart.

 

“Perhaps,” he replied. “But I know it right here. Right now. And I’ve known it for years. Doesn’t that count for something?” He searched her gaze, blue eyes meeting brown.

 

Daniela frowned.

 

_September 25th, 2015 - now_

 

“So, it could be her,” Bonnie says. “I mean, whoever she is.” She licks her lips and looks at clearing before them. “Do you want to find out? I can bring the cloaking spell down --”

 

“It’s not a cloaking spell,” Stefan interrupts, frowning. His brow is so knit together that in the back of his head, Damon wonders if he’ll have to pry his brother’s eyebrows apart. “This isn’t magic. She’s not a witch.”

 

“Yeah, she’s _dead_ ,” Damon says, louder than he’d have liked. Then, he turns to face the clearing and folds his arms.

 

There’s a pause.

 

Damon turns around. Slowly.

 

“How do you know this isn’t magic, Stefan?”

 

_September 25th, 2015 - now_

 

Why did the boy shoot her anyways? It wasn’t as if she was hurting anyone. Although, it would seem suspicious to have a woman with a knife walking down the stairs with a red liquid dripping from the blade.

 

And it would seem more suspicious to have the woman try and ignore you.

 

Daniela lets out a frustrated groan, tossing yet another bare wooden shelf to the side.

 

She’s about to reach for her phone before there’s a loud bang.

 

The front door has likely been made victim to her visitors.

 

Daniela waves her hand and sets the room back in order before stepping into the next room silently as voices - and the unmistakable sharpness of anger - rise up into the air.

 

_September 25th, 2015 - now_

 

“When the _hell_ were you going to tell me that you saw Dani in Chicago? In the _1920_ s?” He kicks the door aside, scowling as he marches into the foyer. Behind him, Caroline mutters, ‘Finally, a name!’ He doesn’t have the heart to glare at her.

 

“Klaus compelled those memories away,” Stefan says, moving toward the parlor.

 

“Yeah, and then he _un_ compelled them,” Damon shoots back, following his brother. “A while ago!” He walks into the dining room, frowning at the disarray of furniture. Stefan follows him now, and stops at the doorway.

 

“She’s looking for something,” his brother thinks aloud, then he meets Damon’s glare. “I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure what happened to her after I left Chicago.”

 

“Oh, right, of course! So, let’s just not mention her having been _alive and well_ at all,” Damon says, his breath quickening as rage floods his vision.

 

“Damon,” Bonnie says. He turns to face her, exhaling a short breath.

 

“What.”

 

“She’s upstairs.”

 

He frowns and starts for the staircase before shifting his gaze to the witch once more.

 

“How are you so sure?”

 

“I don’t know, I just am. I -- I got this feeling --”

 

Stefan interrupts again, his eyebrows pulled together. ( _There was no hope for him now_ , Damon thinks. _I’m not helping him if his face gets stuck like that and Caroline can’t kiss it better_.)

“She can communicate telepathically. She let down her wall for you.”

 

“Telepathi-- what the hell is she?” Damon asks vehemently, though his voice has softened. He doesn’t wait for an answer and heads up the stairs, fingers brushing against the banister.

 

_August 9th, 1859_

 

“Say something,” he said, gaze locked onto hers. _Please_ , he didn’t add. “I’m -- if you refuse me, I will not hold it against you -”

 

“You’re supposed to kneel,” she said, tone dreadfully serious. “And you can’t just take my own ring and propose with it. You’re being very improper.”

 

He laughed, face relaxing - everything relaxing, and leaned forward to kiss her.

 

“I’ll do it better tomorrow, I promise.” He pulled back after a moment and held out the ring to her.

 

Their fingers brushed against one another as she took it back and slipped it back onto her finger.

 

“I will expect nothing less,” she replied and moved to kiss him again.

 

“Happy early birthday, Dani,” he whispered against her lips.

 

He felt her smile and felt the whole world shift into something brighter.

 

_September 25th, 2015 - now_

 

She’s stopped before a closet. The doors have been torn out. They’re the same as before. Everything is the same as before in this room. In her room. She inhales sharply and sinks to her knees.

 

And she forgets.

 

She forgets to be invisible.

 

“Dani?”

 

She doesn’t turn around. For a moment, she considers disappearing.

 

“Dani?” he asks again. He’s closer now. Still, she doesn’t turn around. “Dani, it’s me - Damon. I --”

 

“I know who you are,” she says. Four seconds pass and she stands, still not facing him. “I know. I remember.”

 

“Right,” the man says, voice hardening. “Do - do you mind telling me why you’re here? _How_ you’re here?” At her silence, he adds, “Do you want to at least turn around to look at me?”

 

She turns around, grip tightening on the knife in her hand.

 

“Leave me be, Damon,” she whispers.

 

_September 25th, 2015 - now_

 

She looks like she did when he last saw her - a beautiful wreck. Her eyes are still hollow. It pains him that her eyes have stayed the same.

 

“Leave me be, Damon,” she whispers.

 

He stares at her.

 

“What,” he says, his anger returning, flooding back into his veins. “You’re not going to answer me? You’re just going to tell me to leave?”

 

She says nothing. She’s looking toward him, but past him.

 

“Yes,” she says at last.

 

His jaw locks.

-

_September 25th, 2015 - now_

 

“Yes,” she says, and bites her lip to keep from taking it back.

 

He’s angry. So angry. She never knew him to be so angry. He was easily angered, yes, but he enveloped the anger and kept it hidden in the back of a shelf. This Damon - a Damon she is unsure of - is all hot rage and open passion.

 

This Damon is a stranger.

 

“I came here looking for something. I haven’t found it. I will leave when I have.”

-

_September 25th, 2015 - now_

 

Cold tone. Clear-cut goal. Concise. She means business. Damon stares at her.

 

She was never about business. She hated the way her father’s voice would change ‘when he meant business’. But now …

 

“Okay,” he hears himself say. “Don’t let me get in your way.” He steps back, scrutinizing her once more.

 

He thinks she will say no more and he turns to leave -

-

_September 25th, 2015 - now_

 

“Thank you,” she says. Then, “I’m sorry life dealt us an unfavorable hand.”

 

He pauses.

 

He leaves.

 


	2. "summerland"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damon looks around, bewildered, before his gaze settles on a sign painted a pale blue. 
> 
> He makes a sound akin to a laugh. 
> 
> -
> 
> The gang try to get to know Daniela and her intentions, but I mean, be careful what you wish for.

 

_ September 25th, 2015 - 5 hours later _

 

That night, he dreams of a rainstorm and of brown eyes. He dreams of a rusty handrail and a mostly empty platform. He dreams of a train and a young woman boarding it. He dreams of the train moving forward, away from the chaos. 

 

Away from his chaos. 

 

He wakes up and wonders if it’s raining. Ashamedly, he realizes it’s not rainwater on his cheeks.

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - 9 hours later _

 

“I can’t find it,” she says into the phone that is nestled in between her cheek and shoulder. She purses her lips at his response and ends the call. 

 

It’s late, she realizes as she finally takes the time to notice how her eyes burn. Closing her eyes, she rests her head back against the wall. Her fingers curl, fists clenching. 

 

“I can do this,” she whispers to nobody in particular - not even herself. 

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - now  _

 

“So, she was like, your first love?” Bonnie looks skeptical and exchanges a look with Caroline. The two are sitting cross-legged on Caroline’s bed. Bonnie is resting her head against the other girl’s shoulder. Damon is disgusted that he’s not disgusted by their heartwarming display of affection. Distantly, he thinks of Elena. 

 

“Hang on, I thought Katherine was your first love - is Katherine just the second love of all the Salvatores?” Caroline adds, lifting her brow. Damon rolls his eyes. 

 

“Dani was my first love, yeah,” he says. “But she disappeared in 1859.” 

 

“So you were 18,” Bonnie says, after doing the mental math way too quickly. Damon shifts his jaw and nods jerkily. 

 

“I was young and dumb.” 

 

“And she loved you back?” 

 

Damon is quiet, then he turns away, pretending to peer at a photo of Elena, Caroline, and Bonnie. 

 

“It’s too early for this,” he declares. “Anyways, she’s clearly not in love with me  _ now _ . And she’ll be gone within the week. So there’s that.” 

 

“Which is good, right?” Caroline says, and Damon looks at her. “I mean, you’re waiting for Elena, right? Even though she told you to go live a life? Your own life?” 

 

Damon hates Caroline.

 

“Yeah, it’s good,” he says and ignores Bonnie’s careful gaze. 

 

“Great. So you have no reason to be in our dorm at 6 in the morning,” Caroline replies with a cheerful smile. 

 

Damon really hates Caroline. 

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - now _

 

“Don’t touch her,” Daniela says fiercely, not bothering with the porch steps and appearing before Stefan, who is kneeling before her motorcycle. He sits back, palms pressed against the earth. He looks up at her questioningly. “I built her. What are you doing here?” 

 

“What are  _ you  _ doing here, Daniela?” Stefan folds his arms after standing. The past ninety years have served him well - as well as nine decades can serve a vampire. Daniela meets his gaze. 

 

“I’m looking for a talisman that belonged to my father.” Stefan’s eyebrows shoot up at that. They never spoke of her father before, not even in Chicago. 

 

“Why?” 

 

“Because it belonged to my father, Stefan. Why do you  _ think  _ I want it?” She’s exasperated, spreading her arms out. The freckles dusting her arms have yet to fade. Her skin is gold and olive and brown, kissed by the sun. 

 

Stefan is frowning. 

 

( _ He’s always frowning. He’s either permanently displeased or consistently in deep thought _ , Daniela thinks.) 

 

“I think,” he says, “that the talisman is needed for something. It’s not just out of sentiment that you came back for it, Daniela. That you came back here.” He presses his lips together, surveying her. “Otherwise you would have come back years ago.”

 

“You don’t know that.”

 

“I do,” Stefan retorts, and there’s a hint of frustration that glints in his eyes. “I know you, Daniela. Maybe not as well as Damon, but I know you.” At that, Dani says nothing. She pockets her hands and now she’s the one frowning. “He was distraught, by the way,” he adds when the silence stretches on for too long, “when you up and left.” 

 

Daniela’s gaze hardens and she turns around and walks up the steps to her front porch. 

 

“It was a long time ago. When I left. Don’t come back here, Stefan. I’ve nothing to do with you or your brother anymore.” 

 

She swings the door closed and lets out a shaky breath.

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - 3 hours later _

 

“She told me she was here for a talisman,” Stefan says upon entering the apartment, a tray of coffee in his hand. Caroline gets to her feet and trots over to him, picking up her coffee, not without kissing Stefan. 

 

Damon makes a face and Bonnie elbows him. 

 

“Okay, what kind of talisman?” she asks, crossing her legs so that her knee touches Damon’s thigh.  

 

“She didn’t say. She just said it belonged to her father,” Stefan elaborates. He pauses, and nearly winces. Damon narrows his eyes and smiles wryly. 

 

“What else did she say, little brother? You look squeamishly guilty.” 

 

“She said she doesn’t want me back there. I kind of,” he says, wrinkling his nose, “pissed her off. I said that I thought she wasn’t here for sentimental reasons. If she was, she’d have come back. I said she needed the talisman for something.” Damon listens quietly, his smile fading. 

 

“Okay, so she’s mad at both Salvatore brothers now,” Bonnie says, pursing her lips. “And she’s not a witch. She’s an alchemist?” She turns to Stefan for confirmation, who nods. 

 

“What does that even mean?” Damon interjects, laughing softly. “I mean, now we know her dad was one, too, but --”

 

“It means,” Bonnie says, “that she has no magic of her own, really. She uses science to create means of her to use elements to her advantage.” Damon squints at her. “It means she throws potion-like things together to do magic-like things.”

 

“Ah.”

 

Caroline sips her coffee and runs a hand through her hair, scrolling through her phone. 

 

“Bored already of all the alchemy talk, Caroline?” The blonde looks up and doesn’t bother to glare at Damon. She simply licks her lips and glances at Stefan and Bonnie, then back down at her phone screen. 

 

“Did Daniela ever say why she moved to Mystic Falls?” 

 

Damon furrows his brow before shaking his head. 

 

“No, her family was pretty open but they didn’t talk about that.” 

 

“Well, I don’t blame them,” Caroline murmurs. She bites her lip. “‘ _Alfeo_ _Notte, a prolific man of science who discovered cures to numerous maladies in the early 1840s_ ,’” Caroline pauses from reading aloud to take another drink from her coffee, “‘ _escaped Europe mid-century after his discoveries were stolen and twisted by an old friend named Erlito. Erlito used Notte’s notes to create poisonous drugs that could kill someone instantaneously. He was found dead two days before Notte and his family boarded a ship to America_. _The body was never found_.’” The blonde lifts her head, frowning. 

 

“Alright, so Dani’s dad wasn’t as perfect as everyone thought. Not that surprising - it tends to be common among fathers,” Damon says with a languid smile, shifting his gaze away from everyone and reaching forward to pour himself a glass of bourbon. “Alfeo killed his dick friend and had his wife and kids change their last name, our dad killed his own sons. To each their own, I guess.” He rests his head on the back of the sofa on which he and Bonnie sit and closes his eyes. 

 

“Erlito’s body was  _ never found _ ,” Caroline repeats slowly and Damon works up enough energy to smirk at her frustration. 

 

“If you’re thinking that Erlito was involved in her parents’ deaths,” Damon says, stopping to yawn and stretch, “they were killed by the delusional town drunk. He was hung for his crimes and Dani ran away --”

 

“I’m thinking that Erlito is involved with why Daniela is back in Mystic Falls looking for some talisman,” Caroline says. Damon opens his eyes and glances at her. 

 

“You think he’s still alive?” Stefan asks, looking as pensive as ever. 

 

“It’s a long shot, but yeah,” Caroline says softly. “It says here Erlito was a family friend - he was Daniela’s uncle, practically.” 

 

“She never said anything about him, of course,” Damon scoffs. “But I mean, she doesn’t like to say a lot of things, though, so.”

 

Bonnie makes a noise with the back of her throat. Damon turns his head toward her, raising his eyebrows. 

 

“Stop being bitter.” 

 

Damon grimaces. 

 

“So, who’s going to go find out more about Erlito? We can’t exactly waltz back into the house if Daniela hates your guts,” Bonnie continues, gesturing toward Stefan and Damon at the end. Caroline gasps, then, and smiles.

 

“What is it, blondie?” Damon looks up to the ceiling. He frowns at the thought of Daniela ‘hating his guts’. He may be angry with her, but …

 

“Bonnie and I can go and try to talk to her. You and Stefan go find out something about Erlito by doing your own research. Or just anything about Daniela in general. I mean, she’s been AWOL to you for over a century,” she explains. “We meet back here tonight.”

 

“Hopefully with answers,” Bonnie adds. 

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - 30 minutes later _

 

At this point, the house has been torn apart. Daniela sighs, plopping down onto the bottom step of the staircase. She closes her eyes, thankful for the fleeting moment of peace --

 

There’s a knock on her newly-installed, make-shift door. 

Daniela groans. 

 

“Stefan, I told you not to come back,” she calls out. 

 

“It’s not Stefan,” a female voice answers. Daniela stills. 

-

_ May 17th, 1857 _

 

“It’s not Stefan,” he said, voice tight. Daniela looked at him sharply and shook her head vigorously. 

 

“Of course not,” she said; her words were followed by a gentle ring of laughter. “Why should it be your brother?” She watched him out of the corner of her eye and tried not to grin too widely at how he seemed to sag with relief. 

 

“Then, you should refuse his offer and take mine up instead,” he said, smirking. Daniela let out a soft exhale and rolled her eyes. It was only natural that Damon should miss the point. She had spent the last six years trying to redirect him to said point. 

 

“I cannot. It would be rude,” she replied, her smile dissolving from amused to apologetic. Damon sighed dramatically.

 

“Again, you break my heart, Miss Auguste,” he whispered, his hand over his heart. She snorted at that. 

 

“You will heal, Mr. Salvatore.” 

 

He wrinkled his nose. 

 

“Don’t call me that.”

 

“Then don’t call me Miss Auguste,” she retorted, grinning crookedly at him. 

 

“What should I call you?”

 

“Dani. Like you always do,” she said, her brow furrowing. He should know this. Was the nickname not as special to him as it was to her? Of course it wasn’t. It was simply an easier way to address her. It meant nothing more, she was sure. She pursed her lips and looked away. 

 

Damon’s fingertips brushed against her cheek. 

 

“Dani,” he said. She turned to look at him, her brow raised. “If you should break my heart, I’m afraid I’ll never heal.”

 

She laughed.

 

“Fine,” she said. “You’ve earned yourself a dance tomorrow night.”

 

Damon’s grin seared into her eyes in the best of ways. 

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - now  _

 

“Do you want some tea?” Daniela goes to sit in her father’s old wicker chair as she speaks, her fingers curling around the arms. The girls sitting in front of her, on the pale blue sofa her mother had imported from Spain, shake their heads. The blonde girl - Caroline? - is scanning the room and Daniela can sense her disapproval at the mess. “As you can see, I’m very intent on finding the talisman.” 

 

“Why?” Caroline asks, folding her hands in her lap. “If that’s alright for me to ask, I mean,” the blonde adds after a beat. She furrows her brow and averts her gaze from Daniela. The brunette smiles at that. 

 

“It’s alright for you to ask as long as it’s alright for me not to answer,” Daniela responds. She waves her hand just slightly and takes a sip from a cup of tea. She can feel the witch’s gaze and so she looks up. “It’s called manifestation. I can bend elements and create - or reform - things from them if I concentrate.” Bonnie nods at that, though Daniela can tell she doesn’t fully understand. 

 

“Stefan didn’t tell us what you … are, exactly,” Caroline says, pursing her rosy lips. Daniela glances at her then and shrugs. 

 

“I never really got the chance to tell him. He couldn’t have cared less last we met.” Daniela looks down into her tea and bites her tongue. 

 

Stefan had been vicious. Feral. Predatory. Daniela hadn’t spoken to him very often; she was closer to Klaus in those days. Klaus was just as monstrous, if not more, but his monstrosity could be tamed at times. He painted with her, drew with her, danced with her. They were friends as much as a vampire and another immortal could be friends. 

 

“You were friends, though,” Bonnie says like it’s not a question. But it is. Daniela lifts her gaze to meet the other girl’s. She feels her lips curve into a lopsided smile. 

 

“No. I was closer with Klaus.” 

That earns her two eyebrow raises. She licks her lips and smooths out her skirt. It’s a white skirt with floral print. It was another one of his gifts to her. 

 

“Klaus and I were both artists, so naturally we got along there. But believe me, I didn’t approve of his … other recreational activities,” she says quietly, ignoring how both girls seem to relax at that. “Anyways, no. I didn’t tell Stefan.” 

 

“Are you going to tell us?” Caroline asks, offering her a small smile. Friendliness seemed to pour out of her. For a second, Daniela envies her for that. 

 

“I can, yes.” 

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - now _

 

He slams the car door as he exits.

 

“So, you didn’t bother asking her what the hell she is?” Damon’s eyes ache from glaring at his brother. Stefan shakes his head, expression betraying no guilt. 

 

“I was kind of busy not feeling anything at the time,” he replies, then presses his lips together. “She isn’t a vampire or a witch, though. She never needed blood or spells.” Damon eyes Stefan as he speaks, exhaling through his nostrils as he fights the almost comforting swell of jealousy. 

 

Of course it would be Stefan who saw her again. Of course he was the one to spend time with her. It was always Stefan, wasn’t it? Stefan didn’t even have his humanity at the time and he still got to be with her. 

 

“So, what is she, then? Another case of Silas?” 

 

“Maybe,” his brother answers before they head toward a small building enveloped in moss. 

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - 10 minutes later _

 

“Maybe,” Caroline says as they climb into the car, “that could have gone better.” Bonnie is adjusting her seatbelt but takes the time to give her a look anyways. Of course it could have gone better. It should have gone better. They were off to a good start. 

 

“The barrier’s stronger than ever, now,” Bonnie murmurs. She’s looking out the window toward where the house once stood. Again, it’s a clearing. 

 

“Call Damon,” Caroline says. “See if he found anything.”

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - 15 minutes later _

 

All they’ve found so far is moss, dust, and a sad-looking, washed-out page ripped from what had to be Daniela’s old sketchbook. Damon shifts his jaw as they rummage through shelf after shelf. 

 

“This is,” he begins, but doesn’t get to tell his brother what ‘this is’ as his phone vibrates. He picks up on the first ring. “Resident bitter vampire speaking.” His lips twitch as the sound of Bonnie sighing fills his ear. “Talk to me, Bon-bon. She say anything helpful?”

 

“Other than how she and Klaus were, like, art BFFs and doodled together to their heart’s content, not really? We didn’t get far before she shut us down,” Bonnie says after a moment of hesitation. Her voice, though tinny over the line, is oozing with guilt. “The seal on the house is stronger than ever.” 

 

Damon nearly sighs. 

 

Instead, he wrinkles his nose and slams a cupboard shut. 

 

“Well, that’s it, then, isn’t it? She doesn’t want us involved. So,” he says with a flourish of his hand as Stefan looks up at him, “let’s not get involved.” He steps over a toppled over chair and makes a bee-line for the door. 

 

“Alright,” Bonnie says slowly, clearly unconvinced. “If that’s what you want.” 

 

“It’s what  _ she _ wants,” Damon mutters.

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - now _

 

“It’s war you want, then.”

 

The teacup is shattered on the floor. A piece of it is lodged in her throat. Blood is rising, rising, rising. She doesn’t try to speak or swallow. Instead, she shuts her eyes. Her lips are buzzing with numbness. 

 

“You’ve always been so clever,” he says, and she can hear his lips slide into a toothy grin. He steps closer to her, kneeling and gently lifting her in his arms. “They’ve no idea what harm you’ve tried to save them from.”

 

Daniela opens her eyes and stares at him. 

 

“Poor  _ bambino _ ,” he says, clicking his tongue. 

Her vision is fuzzy, all blended colours and whispers of whispers of shapes. 

 

“I will not be stopped.”

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - now _

 

Bonnie hasn’t said anything. Damon opens his mouth, his hand on the doorknob before the earth seems to crumble beneath him. Caroline and Bonnie shriek into his ear. Eyes widening, he spins to look for Stefan, but his brother is now at his side. 

 

“Bonnie?” 

 

“Damon,” Bonnie breathes, the sound of her voice crackling like weak fire. 

 

“Bonnie, what happened? Are you okay? Is Caroline okay?” Damon purses his lips as he awaits her answer, unsettled by the sounds of clanging and creaking metal. 

 

“Damon,” Bonnie repeats. “Look outside.”

 

The brothers exchange a glance and Damon slowly turns the doorknob. 

 

The air is so thick Damon is thankful he’s no longer human. He coughs and steps forward, a pine cone crunching underneath his foot. 

 

“Stefan?” 

 

He turns around, half-expecting an empty doorway into the old workshop. 

 

“Where are we?” Stefan asks, the air clearing in seconds to reveal a lush green valley. 

 

Damon looks around, bewildered, before his gaze settles on a sign painted a pale blue. 

 

He makes a sound akin to a laugh. 

 

In large, white text it reads:  _ Welcome to Summerland _ . 


	3. "elixir"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, this place is hers?” Caroline’s voice is nearly accusatory. 
> 
> “It could be,” Damon says, not looking at any of them as he walks past some trees. “That doesn’t mean it was her that brought us here.”

 

_ September 26th, 2015 - 20 minutes later _

 

Caroline’s car is a tragedy; it is all scraps and bent, warped slabs of metal. They find her standing in front of it, folding her arms. There’s a gash running along her right temple. Bonnie sits by her, closing her eyes. 

 

“What the hell happened?” Damon asks, frowning at the wreck. Caroline spins around and throws her hands in the air, eyes bulging.

 

“I don’t know! One second we were driving, the next we landed here in a crash - but we’re completely fine, yeah,” she says, her words are rapid fire raining upon him. Stefan walks over and brushes his thumb across her wound. Caroline winces. “I didn’t know we pissed her off  _ that _ much,” she mutters. 

 

Stefan frowns. 

 

“It can’t have been her,” he says, scanning the area. The sky is an expanse of blue, adorned with white wisps of clouds. In the distance lies a series of intricately designed buildings, almost hauntingly similar to --

 

“Italy,” Damon murmurs. Bonnie opens her eyes and looks up at him, brow furrowed. “The architecture,” he explains as he points to the horizon, “is Italian. Florentian, actually.” He walks down a steep hill, moving a bit closer to the buildings. The others trail behind him. 

 

“So, this place  _ is  _ hers?” Caroline’s voice is nearly accusatory. 

 

“It could be,” Damon says, not looking at any of them as he walks past some trees. “That doesn’t mean it was her that brought us here.”

-

_ August 10th, 1851  _

 

He inhaled sharply. Then he laughed. 

 

_ It’s just a girl _ . 

 

“‘Just’?” the girl asked, and Damon swallowed, feeling heat prickle at his cheeks. “Nobody is ‘just’ a girl.” She moved to lean against the trunk of the tree from which she had just leapt. Her skirt was lined with dried mud, making her hair look a deeper brown than it likely was. It was long and fell down in waves that suggested her having braided it before. 

 

“Did you want to play with us?” Stefan stepped out from behind him, his shoulders relaxing. He was smiling again. Smiling came easily to his little brother. 

 

“I did,” the girl said, voice soft. 

 

“Then play,” Damon said. He eyed her quietly for a few seconds before turning away from her. 

 

“Wait,” she called out. He shifted to look at her, his gaze meeting hers. Her eyes were a thousand rings of chestnut and sienna. “Tell me the rules.” 

 

“There aren’t very many,” he said, shrugging. Stefan was bouncing on his heels, eager to play again. “You’ll just have to chase us.”

 

“My mother says,” the girl began, then she paused and smiled. It was a bright, crooked smile and it made Damon inhale again. “Never mind. It’s my birthday - I can do what I want. And I want to chase you.” 

 

Blinking, he opened his mouth to wish her a happy birthday - but then Stefan was tugging at his arm and they were running, tearing across the field. 

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - now _

 

He inhales sharply. 

 

“What is it, Damon - oh,” Stefan cuts himself off as he moves to stand next to him. Damon squints at the bark, trying to find something unfamiliar within its lines. But there’s nothing. 

 

“This is it,” he says. “It’s the tree.” 

 

“What do you mean?” Bonnie asks from behind him. They’re a lot closer to the buildings, now, having stopped atop the final hill overlooking the buildings below them. 

 

“Nothing,” he says, and clears his throat. “Let’s get going.” He swallows, ignoring the dry, scratchy texture of his throat. He hasn’t fed. He probably should have done so beforehand. Thinning his lips, he jogs down the hill. 

 

“Do you think there’s anyone else here?” Caroline shoves her way through some bushes, frowning. “Or at least, some kind of wildlife?” Bonnie looks between all of them and blinks slowly.

 

“Did any of you feed recently?” 

 

There’s a minute of silence.

 

“Define ‘recently’,” Caroline says at last, laughing nervously. Out of the corner of his eyes, Damon watches Stefan tighten his grip around Caroline’s hand. He shifts his jaw and looks ahead. 

 

Bonnie sighs and moves to walk alongside Damon. 

 

“Think she’s here, somewhere?” Her voice is low, and she’s looking at him the way she does when she’s worried. Intensely. Damon blinks. 

 

“I don’t know,” he doesn’t say. 

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - now  _

 

Head throbbing, she sits up slowly. Her palms itch at the fabric. Sunlight warms the room. She furrows her brow and suddenly she’s at her feet, head swerving as she looks around the room. 

 

It’s the same as she left it - her vanity seems to shine as it is bathed in light, her nightgown is laid out across the chair at her desk, and the desk itself is drowning in sheets of paper. She approaches the desk and picks up a piece of paper, lips parting. 

 

“You never thought to change anything here, did you?” 

 

Daniela’s fists clench. She does not turn to face him. 

 

“Why did you bring me here?” Her voice is scathing - and scratchy from lack of use. Her eyes widen then, and she brings a hand to the base of her throat. 

 

“As enjoyable as it was silencing you with that teacup,” he says, “I enjoy the sound of your voice more.” He’s moved behind her, his fingers dancing along her freckled arms. She hisses and pulls away, turning to face him then. 

 

“You’re disgusting,” she spits. 

 

“That’s not what you thought that night in 1951,” he says in a sing-song, low whisper. He reaches for her again and Daniela doesn’t hesitate to manifest a knife in her hand. She holds it out toward him, hand steady as ever. 

 

“Do not,” she says, “touch me. That night was a mistake. Like befriending you.” 

 

The man narrows his eyes and lifts his chin. 

 

“Very well. I will not touch you. But it will cost you,” he murmurs, stepping forward and caressing her blade. 

 

“What will it cost me?” 

 

“A life.” 

 

Daniela frowns, pink lips turning down at the corner.  _ I am not afraid of death _ , she warns. 

 

_ Perhaps _ , he answers. Then he laughs in her head and it is the most grotesque sound, clawing at her ears.  _ But perhaps your friends are. _

 

“What?” 

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - now _

 

“What is this place,” Caroline whispers as she walks ahead of Damon. Her temper seems to have found its way back to the Bay of Sanity. They’re walking through the first building they happened upon - one with large, dome-shaped windows towering above them. The hallway stretches on before them, its walls lined with various portraits and landscapes. 

 

“Looks like her own personal gallery,” Damon says, mostly to himself, voice low. Their footsteps echo. It’s kind of eerie. 

 

“Hey,” Bonnie says, smiling as she approaches a painting. “It’s Warhol.” They all peer at the painting - it’s definitely a Warhol work. Damon purses his lips. It figures. Daniela was always on about art. 

 

“Holy shit,” Caroline hisses beside her friend, moving to stand in front of the frame next to Warhol’s depiction of Marilyn Monroe. Damon lifts his head and gapes. Luckily for him, Bonnie and Stefan are doing the same. “She met the  _ Beatles _ ?” 

 

Sure enough, inside the frame was a photograph of Ringo and Paul, looping their arms around the bare shoulders of Dani. She was smiling her signature smile - all sunny, crooked imperfection. 

 

“How did I miss that,” Stefan mumbles. Damon tears his gaze away from the photo and begins walking down the hall again, pressing his lips together. Bonnie is not far behind him. 

 

“Hey,” she says. He keeps walking, grimacing. “Hey. Damon.” 

 

He wheels around. 

 

“Kinda busy searching for Dani here, Bonnie.” Jaw clenching, he turns back around and continues down the hall, the paintings but a blur to him. 

 

“I  _ know _ ,” Bonnie says, and now she’s walking beside him, reaching up to run her fingers through her hair. “I just --” 

 

Thud.

 

Bonnie’s on her knees now, hands at her throat. 

 

Damon is kneeling in front of her, eyes wide. 

 

“Shit,” he says. “Bonnie? Come on, Bonnie. Stick with me -” Damon bites his lip so hard he can feel it split and there is blood dribbling down his chin. He takes Bonnie’s wrists. “Bon-bon, what’s wrong? What’s happening -”

 

“Bonnie!” Caroline is there, tears springing to her eyes and Damon hates her for it. 

 

_ She’s not dead yet.  _

 

“No, she’s not,” a voice from behind them says. They all whip their heads to face it. 

 

Damon scowls.

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - now _

 

Damon scowls, and Daniela does her best not to look at him after that. She raises her arm and waves her hand in a swift motion and Bonnie coughs. 

 

“What,” Bonnie breathes. 

Daniela doesn’t move closer to them. She thumbs at her jean pockets, glancing toward the wallpaper. “I’m sorry you were brought here. I didn’t mean for any of you to get involved.” Feeling their gazes burn into her, she trains her eyes upon the space between Caroline and Bonnie. “You wanted to know why I came back to Mystic Falls.”  She takes a breath. 

 

It’s easier to close her eyes.

 

She doesn’t. 

 

“I owe someone.” 

-

_ August 12th, 1859 _

 

“This is no debt you need to repay,” he says and she can barely hear him. His voice is thin, almost breakable. Like the glass window she’s staring out from. “Daniela? Did you hear me --”

 

“I heard you,” she cuts him off, her fingers tightening around her arms as she hugs herself. It’s only August but she feels desperate for a hearth already. For warmth. “When do we leave?” She tears her gaze away from the trees and the meadow to face him. 

 

“As soon as you wish to,” the man answers. 

 

“I want more than escape,” she says. His eyebrows, dark as raven feathers, raise. 

 

“What do you want, Daniela?”

 

He steps closer to her, eyes green as emeralds.

 

“I want to go back. I want to end him.” 

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - 5 minutes later _

 

She swings two doors open and strolls in. 

 

“This is the only building I’ve kept secret from him,” she says, crossing over to the center of the room. She surveys them after a moment. “It’s not so much a gallery as it is a memorial.” She laughs then, at herself, and she hates the sound of it. 

 

“So he can’t get in here?” Bonnie asks, rubbing the back of her neck. 

 

“He can’t if he can’t see it. Or sense it,” Daniela replies, moving to sit on a replica wicker chair - the same back at the Auguste manor. Caroline and Bonnie look at each other before sitting on the pale blue sofa again. 

 

“And who is he, exactly?” Stefan remains standing alongside Damon, who Daniela is still dutifully avoiding the gaze of. 

 

Daniela shifts her gaze to the table before her. It’s empty. Once, she had put a vase there with tulips in the hopes the sight of it would comfort her. She doesn’t remember where she put what remained of the vase after a drunken night. 

 

“Someone I thought I could trust, once,” she murmurs. “He helped me escape Mystic Falls in 1859, after my parents were …” 

 

Nobody tries to finish that sentence for her. She’s grateful for it. 

 

“And now he’s transporting people to different dimensions and demanding for talismans.” It’s the first time Damon has spoken for five minutes. Daniela nods, looking down at her lap. 

 

“This is mine,” she says quietly. “This realm. I created it not long after becoming immortal.” 

 

Bonnie’s eyes are the widest in the room. 

 

“But you’re not -”

 

“I’m no witch. I’ve no coven, yes,” Daniela confirms, with a hint of a smile. “Like I said, I bend the elements to my will. I am aware of planes beyond the Earth. And I was lucky enough to be able to make my own,” she explains, gesturing to the room around them. 

 

“How?” Damon asks, his voice tight. 

 

Daniela swallows, then finally drags her gaze toward him. 

 

“My father was an alchemist,” she starts, and it sounds like she’s memorized it, “and his father before him. My father was the greatest alchemist of his age - likely, of our line. We were driven out of Italy by -”

 

“Erlito,” Caroline whispers and Daniela glances at her. The blonde squeaks out a quick ‘Sorry!’ and Daniela has the grace to laugh. 

 

“It’s alright,” she assures her, then bites her lip before continuing. “Erlito was my godfather - I grew up running into his arms when I could not run into my father’s or mother’s. He was family in all the ways that count, you know?” Daniela runs a hand through her hair. “But he grew envious of the talent my father possessed. And he did not … understand why my father did not do more with what power he was given. ‘ _ You could make yourself a king _ ,’ he would say whenever he joked around with Father. Back then, we didn’t know that his jokes were real suggestions - suggestions that, when he tired of us not listening to them, he took as his own.” 

 

“He stole your father’s research, didn’t he?” Caroline asks, brow furrowed though she attempts a smile for Dani’s sake. 

 

The brunette nods. 

 

“He stole it and warped it, reshaping it for his own purposes. Once my father found out, he had us packing for America. Three nights before our ship left the dock, he came home late. Bloody. I remember crying and crying - I remember being afraid. But my mother simply looked at him and sighed. In relief. ‘ _ It’s done, then _ ,’ she said. And she took him in her arms.”

-

_ March 19th, 1851 _

 

“It’s done, then,” Clara sighed, and embraced him. Daniela clung to her brother’s arm tighter. What did this mean? What was done? 

 

“Come, children,” Alfeo said as he pulled away from his wife’s arms (not without hesitation), “the ship leaves at dawn in two days. It won’t be long.” He turned to Clara as he spoke, his brow furrowed. Daniela frowned. 

 

“Won’t be long for what? The wait?” 

 

Alfeo looked at his daughter as if noticing her presence for the first time that night. There was crimson blooming across his chest, setting off against the white of his shirt. 

 

“Are you afraid of me, Daniela? Of what I’ve done?”

 

She stared at him, lips parted.

 

“No,” she whispered.

 

Then she leapt into his arms. 

 

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - now _

 

Damon yearned for her to look at him. But she wouldn’t even breathe in his direction, it seemed. 

 

She’s telling them, now, of her family and immortality. 

 

Damon wonders why family and damnation were so closely linked.

 

“We built a life in America,” Daniela is saying, a tendril of her brown hair hanging down by her chin. Damon stares at it for two seconds too long before tearing his gaze away and simply listening. He knows this part. He was there. “It wasn’t much, but it was, in some ways, more than we’d had in Florence. More than I’d have hoped for in Florence.” Damon swallows at that and scratches his earlobe. 

 

Bonnie is looking from Daniela to him. She’s smiling.

 

Damn Bonnie.

 

“And then,” Dani continues, voice softening, “he returned to us. A week before my 17th birthday. He was older. Crueler. I did not know,” she breathes, “how cruel just yet.” 

 

Damon straightens. 

 

She didn’t mean -

 

“Your parents,” he cuts in. “They were killed by the town drunkard. I remember.” He frowns deeply, his face aching from all the displeasure it had been expressing as of late. Daniela shifts her gaze to him. 

 

“They weren’t killed by the town drunkard,” she says, laughing. It’s a strangled noise and it twists his stomach. 

 

“But I remember,” he says dumbly. 

 

“No,” she says, voice gentle but bitter with poison. Venom. “They weren’t killed. They were ripped apart. Bone by bone.”

 

They’re all gaping now. 

 

Damon can feel his fingers trembling against his thigh. He doesn’t even know why - he’s seen men fly to pieces upon stepping on grenades. He’s seen men being torn from the inside out. He’s killed men in ways worse than this. 

 

Still.

 

Alfeo.

 

Clara.

 

They weren’t well-received by his father. Giuseppe never liked anyone but people similar to himself - meaning, of course, assholes and the like. Alfeo and Clara were good people; disgustingly kind and generous. Trusting, too. Alfeo had never treated Damon badly even if he disagreed with the then human boy. Even if he was upset with him. And Clara? Clara would make him tea and sneak him some alcohol here and there - the best kind - and talk to him about anything that mattered. And anything that didn’t. 

 

Their children - Daniela and her brother Leon - were great. And Alfeo and Clara were greater still. 

 

He thinks of them, being nothing but dust and old, bloodied bones. He grits his teeth. 

-

_ September 26th, 2015 - now _

 

“My father had been working on his lost research,” Daniela says, finding it difficult to stop talking. “He wanted to cure all disease. He was kind of an ambitious bastard like that,” she adds, laughing. 

 

Nobody else laughs.

 

“He was a good man,” Stefan says quietly. Daniela nods at that.

 

“He was. That’s what killed him, I guess.” She looks aside, toward the window that takes up nearly the entire wall to their right. “I took all of it. His research. His ingredients. Everything. I took all of it and tried to - I tried to bring them back,” she says, voice cracking on ‘back’. “I was just as bad as Erlito. I used what he found and I tried to make it something it wasn’t.” 

 

Her hands are shaking in her lap, at an increasing tempo. 

 

“Before I could do anything about it, they found me,” she continues after a trembling exhale, “and they sent me to an orphanage several towns over. Nobody wanted me in Mystic Falls. I was the daughter of a man dabbling with dark magic, after all.” 

 

She can sense the Bennett witch frowning. 

 

“But they didn’t take what I had left of them. I was barely settling in when he came for me. By then, I had put it together.” 

 

She stops talking then, pursing her lips. 

 

Caroline clears her throat.

 

“What did you put together?”

 

“This,” Daniela says after a beat, raising in front of them a vial of hypnotizingly red liquid. “An elixir.” 

 


	4. "thirst"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you know something, Damon?” 
> 
> “Uh,” he says.

 

_ September 27th, 2015 - 9 hours ago _

 

His lips were dry, nearly chapped. This place seemed to make the thirst worse. 

 

Maybe he should have gone to sleep like everyone else. 

 

He blinks hard and scans the room. Daniela had left shortly after explaining the conditions of her immortality; how she needed only small doses of the elixir at a time to keep herself youthful, how she could make things appear at will through a process called manifestation, and how she gained telepathic abilities because of the properties of the red liquid which resembled blood too much for the vampires’ liking. 

 

Bonnie is curled up on the opposite end of the couch on which he sits, her sock touching his. He smiles a little at the touch, and glances toward his brother and Caroline, who are entangled in each other on the floor. Stefan’s arm is wrapped around Caroline’s waist loosely and he’s smiling for the first time in hours. Damon wrinkles his nose and stands. 

 

There has to be a kitchen somewhere. 

 

Or at least a wine cellar.

-

_ September 27th, 2015 - now _

 

“So, nobody knows where she disappeared off to?” Caroline is pulling her hair back in a high ponytail as she speaks, and Damon scowls at the faint spray of water as her hair swishes toward his face. The blonde had been, in classic Caroline fashion, ecstatic to learn that there was a grandiose bathroom two doors down from their sleeping quarters this morning. 

 

(She had beat even Stefan to the shower, although Damon is certain Stefan sneaked in to join her at some point while Damon and Bonnie took care of breakfast.

 

It’s not every day his brother looks so smug.)

 

“Nope,” Damon replies, popping the ‘p’ in his mouth. He yawns and stretches, purposely nudging Bonnie’s cheek with his knuckle as he does so. The witch turns to glare at him. 

 

“Well,  _ that’s _ helpful,” Caroline says, plopping down to sit on Bonnie’s opposite side. 

“I’m guessing we shouldn’t leave the building. Not unless we want something worse than Bonnie nearly asphyxiating on nothing,” Stefan says. He’s sitting on the coffee table they pulled in from another room, flipping through a folder idly. Bonnie groans. 

 

“Awesome. Now we’re stuck in this world and you’re all still thirsty vampires,” she sighs, eyeing Damon. The dark-haired male swallows and avoids her gaze. 

 

“Ugh, don’t remind me that I’m parched, Bonnie,” Caroline says, crossing her arms across her chest. “I really hope whatever Daniela’s doing, it involves getting us blood.” 

 

“Mhm,” Bonnie hums, but Damon can still feel her gaze on him. He wrinkles his nose and says nothing. Stefan seems to notice and narrows his eyes at his brother, lifting a brow. 

 

“Do you know something, Damon?” 

 

“Uh,” he says. 

-

_ September 27th, 2015 - 9 hours ago _

 

It’s a cellar, alright, but not the kind he was seeking. There are a plethora of shelves, each full to the point that in the back of his mind, Damon fears them falling from the weight of all the vials and bottles.

 

There’s no wine here. 

 

But there are what he guesses to be gallons of elixirs. They are all different: red, blue, violet, green, neon green, gold, yellow, orange, the exact shade of a blue flame, and so much more. Some are the colour of colours he never knew existed. 

 

He walks up to the wooden slab in the middle of the room, pressing his hand against its ledge. 

 

It’s cold.

 

There are a mortar and pestle with crushed leaves encircling them. Damon leans in some to smell --

 

“What are you doing.” 

 

He spins around. 

 

“Uh,” he says. He holds his arms up, as if surrendering. 

Daniela’s eyes are steel. 

 

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” she snaps before flicking her wrists. Suddenly, the room is all bare shelves and the cold draft from her glare. 

 

He scoffs.

 

“Yeah,” he says, “I know. But maybe if you actually told us anything about your ex, we’d have gotten out of here and taken care of him.” He pauses. “Not necessarily in that order -”

 

“He’s not my ex,” Daniela says firmly. Almost defensively. His eyebrows shoot up. 

 

_ Damn right he isn’t _ , he wants to say.  _ I am _ . 

 

But that would be ridiculous.

 

Three seconds, later, though, it hits him that Daniela has the ability to read minds. 

 

“Fu-”

 

“Whatever you just thought, I didn’t hear it,” she interrupts. He congratulates himself mentally when his shoulders don’t sag in relief. She steps around him and looks down at the wooden surface of the slab. “I don’t often let the wall down.”

 

“There’s a wall?” 

 

“Yeah,” she murmurs, her hair falling over her eyes. “I put it up for myself and others. I don’t like having my mind read. Nobody does, I’m sure.” He furrows his brow at that, exhaling through his nostrils. 

 

People could read her mind? 

 

That only meant -

 

Blood rushes to his ears as she takes his wrist. 

 

“You’re thirsty,” she says. 

 

“I mean,” he responds after clearing his throat, “yeah? This place seems to accelerate the thirs-” 

 

“You can drink my blood.” 

 

He once had a brain.

 

Maybe?

 

If he did, he hardly used it.

 

But to hell with it, apparently, considering his brain was just obliterated thanks to five words and his wrist being touched by miraculously soft hands. 

 

“Did you hear me?” She looks concerned and Damon thinks, distantly:  _ I remember this. I remember your face. I remember the way you touched me. The way your brow furrowed. The way you said my name like it was a curse and the best miracle you could ever have witnessed all at once _ . 

 

“Yeah,” he says, sounding far away. Then he frowns. “You really need to learn how to not interrupt someone when they’re talking. You’re really good at avoiding the question.” 

 

She smiles at that, and lets out a breathy laugh. 

 

He smiles, too. 

 

“You won’t have to worry about taking too much,” she says, licking her lips. Do they still taste like berries? 

 

“Okay.” 

 

“Okay?” She seems surprised that he’s agreeing. Damon draws his hand back, away from hers. His gaze falls to her exposed collarbone. To her neck. He inhales, feeling his face shift. 

 

“Yeah, okay,” he exhales. 

 

He cradles her neck. 

 

Even her blood tastes like berries, sweet and fresh. 

 

Her fingers are caught in his hair, and he swears he hears her swear in Italian. 

 

“Oh,” she says and he pulls away, her blood smeared across his mouth. They look at each other quietly. Damon can hear her heartbeat. It’s galloping. 

Dani is reaching forward then, and Damon feels himself lean in. 

 

She presses her thumb on his bottom lip and grins her Auguste grin. 

 

“Don’t waste it,” she whispers. 

 

“Yeah, okay.” 

-

_ September 27th, 2015 - now  _

 

“She said she was going to get us some blood and then be back by the end of the day. And then she left,” he says, and the lie slides out of his mouth quicker and easier than he thought it would. 

 

Technically, it isn’t a lie. 

 

She did say that.

 

And she did leave.

 

“That all?” Bonnie asks, and Damon looks at her, eyes wildly incredulous. Does she secretly harness the power of telepathy too and simply disregards ‘the wall’? He scowls and looks away. 

 

“Yeah. That’s all she said. And then she left,” he repeats. 

 

Blondie and Prince Charming exchange glances, and to Damon’s relief, say nothing. 

 

“Let’s get ourselves busy then,” Caroline says, clapping her hands together. “And hey, maybe we’ll find you some alcohol along the way, Damon.” 

 

Maybe he doesn’t hate Caroline after all. 

-

_ December 20th, 1858  _

 

“How is he?” Daniela whispers as she comes up from behind him, her thumb brushing against the cuff of his sleeve for a brief moment. 

 

“He’s doing as well as he can manage,” Damon murmurs, unable to tear his gaze away from the tree. Daniela really is an artist. The tree looks more radiant than ever, even if it wasn’t decorated by his mother this year. 

 

“And your sister? How is she?” She glances around them, eternally cautious and fearful that Giuseppe would turn around the corner and find them. In truth, Giuseppe hardly made an appearance during Christmas and Damon doubted his father’s presence even more now that this was the first Christmas since his mother’s death. 

 

“She’s Evelina,” he says. “She never lets anything break her. That, and she  _ is _ five. It’s … sad, but she’s unlikely to recall our mother in the coming years.” He furrows his brow, and touches a glass ornament gilded with gold - a new addition to the tree this year. “Stefan, on the other hand? He’s going to carry this around for a while, I’m sure.” 

 

“And you?” Daniela whispers by his ear, her breath tickling his neck. He shifts his jaw and steps away. 

 

“I’m fine. It happened months ago,” he says. 

 

“I could never imagine I could be this strong,” Daniela says, and she touches his wrist. 

 

Her hands are soft. 

 

Even softer than his mother’s.

 

Maybe Dani didn’t hate him after all. 

-

_ September 27th, 2015 - 4 hours later _

 

“Can someone  _ please _ explain to me what you’ve done to my kitchen?” Daniela steps over what used to be, she guesses, a ladle. On the floor several feet away from her sit three exhausted looking vampires and an exasperated witch. 

 

“We wanted to make dinner,” Bonnie says with a weak smile. 

 

Daniela blinks incredibly slowly. 

 

“Well, lucky for you, Cullens, I have brought you dinner instead.” Ignoring the resounding groans at the Twilight reference, Daniela tosses them each two bags of blood. “I’ve got more in the fridge now.” 

 

She narrows her eyes and the kitchen is suddenly restored to its original state.

 

Bonnie smiles. 

 

“What about  _ our _ dinner?” 

“Oh, easy. I’ve been craving pizza. You okay with that?” She raises her hand and waits for Bonnie’s response. The witch merely tilts her head back so it rests against the cupboard behind her and sighs loudly. She smiles. 

 

“What took you so long?” Stefan asks, being the first to have finished his share of blood. Next to him, Caroline seems to be savouring her share, not even touching her second bag. 

 

Damon hasn’t touched his bags at all. 

 

Daniela shifts her gaze back to Stefan and shrugs. 

 

“I got caught up.” 

 

She turns to Bonnie and snaps. Sitting in the girl’s hands now is a box of large pepperoni. Bonnie opens the box and gapes. 

 

“Holy crap, you’re amazing,” she says, seeming to cradle the box of pizza. 

 

The brunette brings a hand to her mouth as she laughs. 

 

“Hey, come sit with us,” Caroline says, smiling as she pats the space in between her and Bonnie. 

 

“Okay,” Daniela answers, the corner of her mouth sliding up so that she’s smiling lopsidedly. “So, about the -”

 

“Shhh,” Damon says. Daniela lifts her brow and the rest of them turn toward him. “Hear that?”

 

“What,” Daniela says, folding her arms. 

 

“It’s the sound of us taking a break from all the world’s crap.” 

 

She lets out a breath, smiling again. 

 

They eat in silence for about ten seconds before:

 

“Fine, Damon, but you really need to learn how not to interrupt someone.” 

 

Damon chokes.


	5. "sleep"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damon shuts his eyes and makes a frustrated noise from the back of his throat. 
> 
> “Why is it,” he hisses, “that they all fall asleep on me?”

 

_ April 24th, 1951 _

 

“Feel any better?” His breath was hot, and as he spoke, he pressed his mouth to her earlobe. Daniela closed her eyes, tilting her head back a fraction. She willed herself not to lean into him. Her own breaths were shallow. 

 

“A little,” she admitted before she shifted to look at him, tracing his name along his broad shoulder. 

 

“I’m glad,” he said, and leaned in to kiss her again. 

 

Daniela inhaled. 

 

His lips tasted like nothing. 

-

_ September 28th, 2015 - 15 hours ago _

 

“Feel any better?”

 

Damon glances toward her, looking puzzled for a second. Then he shrugs and returns to swishing around the blood in his glass, shifting his jaw some. 

 

“Sorry I asked,” Daniela says, licking her lips as she takes a seat across from him. “Where are the others?”

 

“Exploring,” Damon says, still not looking at her. 

 

The both of them are quiet after that. 

 

Daniela picks at a loose thread of her sweater, careful not to look at Damon. She’s lounging on the blue sofa, her socks sliding slowly off of her heel as she shifts to face the ceiling. 

 

“You didn’t,” Damon starts, then he clears his throat. Daniela looks at him sharply. Expectantly. But he doesn’t continue. 

 

“Didn’t what?” 

 

“Never mind.” 

 

Daniela scoffs.

 

“No, what didn’t I … do? Say? What is it, Damon?” She sits up, turning so that she may face him. Damon’s grip seems to tighten on the glass and he sits up too, leaning forward to set down his drink on the table between them. 

 

“You knew,” he says softly. She lifts her brow at that. “You knew Stefan was a vampire. He must have told you something about me - you had to have known I was alive, too. You knew. And you didn’t -” Damon exhales a laugh and looks aside. 

 

She pinches the fabric of her jeans, careful not to focus on the sharp outline of his jaw. 

 

“And I didn’t come for you,” she finishes for him. 

 

Damon neither speaks nor nods. 

 

He stares at her. 

 

That’s enough for Daniela to know, and to hear the question lodged in both their throats.

 

_ What happened to us _ ? 

 

“Sorry to interrupt,” a male voice exhales. Daniela stands, jostling the table as she marches over to him. “Relax, Dan. I’m not here to kill anyone just yet.” The brunette meets his gaze, her lips parting. 

 

What a relief that no lives were to be lost just yet. 

 

“‘Dan’?” Damon says, looking between the two with incredulity. 

 

Daniela presses two fingers to her temple. 

 

“Do you take  _ pleasure _ in missing the point or …?” 

 

At that, the man barks out a laugh. He scrutinizes Damon, green eyes flashing before he steps forward and jabs his thumb toward him.

 

“Is this him? The one you wanted to marry all those years ago?” 

 

Daniela’s breath hitches and her eyes drop to the rug she stands on. It’s a beautiful rug - handmade by two women in Prague who were happy to host Daniela for several years in their home. 

 

“Don’t hurt him,” is all she can muster up the courage to say. Her voice has shrunk. She hates herself for it. 

 

Disgust emanates from Damon. Daniela can feel it radiating off of him. 

 

“I won’t,” her old friend says. He leans in to lift Daniela’s chin so that she is looking at him as he speaks. “You already have, after all.”

 

She spits in his face.

 

“Go to hell.” 

 

“I’ve been there and back again,” he says, sing-song. “It’s lovely this time of year. Do you remember?” 

 

Daniela’s eyes widen. 

 

“So you do.” The man smirks. “I find it amusing that you thought I could not access this haven of yours. This …. summerland.” He spreads his arms, which are covered in tattoos of snakes, that, if one should look closely, appeared to slither at a slow rate across his muscles. 

 

“What do you want, you  _ bastardo _ ?” Her voice has risen, expanded with rage. 

 

“I just wanted to distract you,” he says, stepping back and waving his hand over her face. 

 

Daniela drops. 

 

The world shifts.

-

_ September 28th, 2015 - now _

 

Bonnie slams the grimoire shut and Damon jolts. 

 

“Nothing,” she says, looking the slightest bit sheepish. “We’re lucky, though, that I jacked this from her library before that guy brought us back. It’s got plenty of other helpful spells.” 

 

Damon shuts his eyes and makes a frustrated noise from the back of his throat. 

 

“Why is it,” he hisses, “that they all fall asleep on me?” He breathes out a twisted sounding laugh and runs both hands through his hair, glancing toward Daniela, who lies unconscious on the coffee table. (Damon insisted on moving her, but apparently the best they could come up with was resting a pillow underneath her head). 

 

“This is different,” Bonnie says quietly. 

 

He lifts his gaze to meet hers. 

 

“She can be woken up sans someone  _ dying _ ,” she explains, furrowing her brow despite attempting to smile. Damon purses his lips, feeling the all too familiar sting of the unspoken:  _ You’re being an asshole _ . “What do you think he meant by ‘I just wanted to distract you’?” 

 

He lowers his gaze and wrinkles his nose.

 

“Honestly, I have no idea.” He expects Bonnie to look exasperated - to look  _ done _ \- but she just nods and presses her lips together before returning to her book. 

 

“You never spoke to me about her,” she says and Damon stills. “We talked about  _ everything _ , Damon. At least, I thought it was everything. But never her. Why?” 

 

Damon lets out a groan. 

 

“Look, Bon-”

 

“No, I told you everything about me. Some of which I hadn’t yet told Elena or Caroline,” Bonnie says, and  _ now _ she’s glaring at him. Damon rolls his eyes. 

 

“I didn’t tell you about her because she wasn’t important.” Ignoring Bonnie’s pointed look, Damon continues. “Or, I didn’t want her to become important.” He takes a breath and adds, “Again.” Bonnie nods, her gaze softening the way it does when she’s about to-

 

“Go on,” she says. 

 

“‘First love’ doesn’t even encompass what Dani was,” he whispers. “She was my first everything. In all the ways that matter. We grew up together, more or less. My father never liked her parents - especially her dad. He was too open. Too kind. Everything my dad, as you know, wasn’t. My mom? Well, before she became the vampire bitch she is -”

 

“Damon,” Bonnie says, but she’s smiling. 

 

“She liked Clara - Dani’s mom - and Leon, her brother. She liked all of them. But Dad was the one who called the shots so,” he says, shrugging, “it didn’t matter if she liked them. Anyways, I didn’t give a crap and neither did Stefan.” 

 

“Or Evelina?” 

 

He swallows and shakes his head, smiling down at his lap. “Yeah, she took after us. Me. A lot. She didn’t care. I mean, she was only six by the time Dani left, but the two of them got along great.” 

 

Damon didn’t like talking about his sister. 

 

No, Damon didn’t  _ not _ like talking about his sister.

 

But he didn’t like thinking about her. 

 

Most people didn’t know she existed; neither he nor Stefan spoke of her very often, except maybe during the holidays. Evelina adored Christmas. Every year, she’d wake up at the crack of Christmas dawn and jump up onto his bed to tug him down to the tree. 

 

They never had many presents but Evelina didn’t care. 

 

“I just want to be up for the whole of Christmas before it fades away again,” he remembers her saying one year - the year before his mother ‘died’. He had looked down at her, bleary-eyed with hair swept away by his bedsheets. He had been exhausted. But in that moment, he took her in his arms and the rest of the day was spent playing in the snow and teasing Stefan. 

 

“Damon?” 

 

He looks up to meet Bonnie’s quizzical face. 

 

“Yeah?” 

 

“Her parents died on her birthday, right?” 

 

He touches the roof of his mouth with his tongue and nods once. 

 

“Yeah. I was walking to her house that evening - I, uh,” he stops to scratch his cheek, “I wanted to ask her something. But when I got there, there was a crowd of townspeople. My father was among them. They claimed that the Augustes were involved with witchcraft, dabbling in dark magic. But the official ruling was that the town drunk murdered them. They hung him, but nobody seemed that upset about it.”

 

“And Daniela?” 

-

_ August 10th, 1859 _

 

“Where is she?” he growled, shoving past Jonathan Gilbert. “Where’s Daniela?” He stumbled forward, having nearly tripped on something. He looked down to find an overturned book. It was open and seemed to have been flung carelessly to the ground. 

 

He picked it up swiftly and turned it over.

 

_ The Scarlet Flower _ .

 

He frowned. It was Daniela’s latest read. 

 

“What are you doing here, boy?” Damon looked up sharply. There stood his father, wrinkled forehead, thin lips and all. He towered over Damon, even though Damon was coming up to his height at last. 

 

“Where is she?” 

 

Giuseppe blinked his gaze away, turning toward the Auguste manor. 

 

Damon stepped up to stand beside him. He swallowed.

 

“Father, where is she? Is she hurt? Is she -”

 

“She’s alive. That is all you need.” 

-

_ September 28th, 2015 - now _

 

“So, she just left for the orphanage? They sent her away?” Bonnie presses her lips together as Damon nods. 

 

“My father actually tried to be less of an asshole by saying he’d sent her our address so that she could write letters to me,” Damon says, brow furrowing as he looks back to the sleeping Daniela. “But she never did.” 

 

“Maybe he lied.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Damon murmurs. 

 

“Is she awake?” Caroline asks as she bursts in, her blonde hair flying in ringlets around her like a halo. Damon holds out his hands to gesture to Daniela.

 

“Nope.” 

 

Stefan follows Caroline and looks down toward the sleeping brunette, then glances over at Bonnie, who merely shakes her head and looks away. 

 

“Any sign of our villain?” Damon asks, glancing between his brother and Caroline. 

 

“ _ No _ ,” Caroline says, sighing in frustration as she moves to sit next to Bonnie. “We checked everywhere within a 50 mile radius. Which isn’t that helpful since he can, like, teleport.” 

 

“ _ Manifest _ ,” Bonnie mutters and Caroline shoots her a glare before laughing softly. 

 

“So, now we’ve got our second Sleeping Beauty case,” Caroline says, biting her lip. “Got any clue as to what this guy’s motives are?” She pulls out her phone from her jean pocket and unlocks it. 

 

“Nope.” 

 

Caroline looks up to give Damon a look, her eyes narrowing. 

 

“What, did you just sit here moping while Bonnie searched the grimoire?” She crosses her legs and shifts some to get comfortable before looking down at her phone. “We didn’t get a name or a sighting - buuuut,” she grins as she glances up to them, “there were hints of him along this town called Bathory.” 

 

“Hints such aaaas?” Damon leans back into the chair, subconsciously rubbing circles along the arms with his thumbs. 

 

“There’s a house on its outskirts, that, until yesterday, didn’t exist,” Caroline elaborates, not without sending Damon her best glare yet, “and its garden is filled with -”

 

“Tulips?” 

 

“Yeah,” Caroline says, blinking. “How did you know?” 

 

“Just a hunch.” 

Caroline, Bonnie, and Stefan all look at each other.

 

“ _ O _ -kay, well. Yeah, there’s that. The house was empty when Stefan and I came in - like, no furniture or anything. Just the flowers outside,” the blonde continues. She glances at Damon. “Any ideas now?”

 

“Nope.”

 

He can hear them groaning on the inside.

-

_ April 24th, 1951 _

 

He was twirling a tendril of her still-damp hair around with his index finger. They lay in her bed, entangled in the off-white, silk sheets. He had turned over on his back, which was lined with muscle. 

 

Daniela blinked away the memory of clawing at that back the night before. 

 

“Your hair’s still wet,” he said, eyes wide with wonder. “Your hair takes ages to dry.” 

 

She laughed through her nostrils; it was breathy and hardly inaudible. 

 

“It’s no great feat, my friend.” 

 

He shifted to sit up, then, and looked down at her, brow furrowed.

 

“Is that all?” 

 

Daniela stared back at him. 

 

“Is that all what?”

 

“Is that all I am to you? A friend?” His tone wasn’t hostile. Not yet. Daniela swallowed. She had to be careful about her answer. She lowered her gaze and pressed her hand against his thigh, reaching over to kiss him deeply.

 

“You know the answer to that,” she whispered against his mouth before pushing him gently down toward the bed once more.

 

He grinned up at her, his freckles vibrant in the sunlight. 

 

“You’re wonderful. The best one,” he whispered. 

-

_ September 29th, 2015 - now _

 

“You were the best one,” the man whispers, brushing back stray strands of Daniela’s hair from her forehead. 

 

Damon steps out from the shadows. 

 

“Don’t touch her.” 

 

The man blinks and wheels around, at an agonizingly slow pace, to face the vampire. He grins and Damon notices, for the first time, how boyish the man looks when he smiles: all sun and freckles and bottle-green eyes. 

 

“You do realize,” he says, raising his eyebrows as he speaks, “that I am the only one able to wake her.” 

 

Damon swallows back a snort, instead opting for the crease between his own eyebrows to form. He licks his lips and walks toward him. 

 

“You do realize that you’re not that original, Prince Philip.” 

 

The man looks puzzled and Damon takes this as an opportunity to raise his gun and fire at his chest. 

 

Bang!

 

_ Ding dong the witch is dead _ , he thinks distantly.

 

This is followed by: 

 

_ Right, you’re not a witch _ .

 

Then: 

 

_ Shit, that didn’t work _ .

 

The man chuckles and waves his hand and suddenly there’s a searing pain in Damon’s abdomen. With shaking hands, he tears his shirt open to reveal a blooming, dark violet bruise snaking its way to his heart. Eyes wide, he looks to the man.

 

“What have you done to me?”


	6. "need"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You were screaming for them again, Daniela.” 
> 
> “My parents?”

 

_ October 2nd, 2015 - now _

 

In books, they say that the light blinds someone when they wake up in a foreign place, kidnapped or otherwise. The light doesn’t blind Damon. 

 

It ravages him. 

 

Panic begins to claw at his throat and for a fraction of a fraction of a second, he dwells on the image of being burned by the sunlight. Then, he feels the coolness of the ring wrapped around his finger. 

 

His lips part; they are dry and chapped. 

 

“I wager you’re thirsty.” Damon sits up immediately at that, clenching his jaw at a jab of pain in his chest. He scowls and shoots the man a glare. “I only kept you unconscious for a  _ few _ days.” The man lifts his arms in mock surrender. 

 

“Where’s Daniela? Did you hurt them? Any of them?” His voice comes out as a snarl, and every bone in him feels feral. 

 

The man’s laugh sounds like wind chimes. 

 

Wind chimes crafted by Satan. 

 

“I had no use for the others,” the man begins, and Damon lunges for him before dropping to his knees and clawing at his throat. “Careful, Damon Salvatore.” 

 

“What,” Damon gasps, his breath returning to him in a rush as the green-eyed man lowers his hand. It is callous, a thin scar running down the middle of his palm. Damon blinks his gaze away. 

 

“If you continue to be so offensively reckless I might not give you what you need.”

 

“Where are you keeping her, you -”

 

“I do not mean Daniela.”

 

Damon has the sense to look mildly surprised.

Then, Damon barks out a laugh. 

 

“ _ You _ ? You’re offering me  _ your  _ blood?”  

 

Unsmiling, the man kneels before Damon and extends his arm. A tattoo of a snake devouring itself shines a brilliant gold on his wrist. 

 

“I can’t say I’m surprised you haven’t figured out what I have done to you yet,” he says, voice gentler than Damon has ever heard it - gentler than when he heard him speak to Daniela. 

 

“Well, I’m not sure if Daniela told you, but I am a bit of an idiot. So, explain.” He gestures vaguely with one hand, all the while avoiding the man’s gaze. 

 

“You need me -” 

 

“To find Daniela, sure, I can admit that.”

 

“- to live.” 

 

_ Oh _ .

 

_ Shit _ . 

 

_ October 1st, 2015  _

 

“What have you done to him?” Her voice is hoarse, and her elbows tremble as she attempts to sit up. “If you have killed him, I will -”

 

“What, kill  _ me _ ?” He leans in, breath hot against her cheeks. His eyes have narrowed into green slits. “Do not insult me by taking me for a fool, my love. I’ve simply taken care of your sweet vampire.” The man brings a hand up to caress Daniela’s cheek. It is cold and clammy. She hisses and turns away. 

 

“Damon can beat you. They all can,” she says loudly. 

 

At that, the man chortles.

 

“Not if Damon needs me to live.” 

 

Daniela’s jaw locks and she looks back at him, her eyes wide. 

 

“No,” she whispers. Her lips crush each other into a thin line. 

 

“Tell me, my flower, what was it about him? His eyes? His hair? It’s quite tasteless, if you ask me. Was it the way he made love to you? Was it that he was your first? Tell me, what made you fall in love with this pathetic being?” As he speaks, the man strokes Daniela’s back. She squirms away from him and lets out a shallow exhale.

 

“I’ll do it,” she says quietly. “I’ll do you your favour. Just don’t hurt him. Unlink yourself from his life and I’ll do it. Do not hurt him.” 

 

The man pulls back, clicking his tongue. 

 

“You do yourself a disservice by pretending he still cares for you in that way. You are no longer his to love, Dan. He has his own Sleeping Beauty to awake with a kiss. Or a kill, rather,” he says, laughing softly. 

 

Daniela pauses.

 

“If you believe that to be reason enough for me to leave him to his death, you know  _ nothing _ about me.”

 

He scoffs and waves his hand. 

 

The brunette collapses, her head gently thudding against the glass wall separating her from him. 

 

“You’re the one to be left to her death, my foolish flower.”

 

_ October 3rd, 1978  _

 

He was snarling at her, clawing helplessly at the wall. Chin trembling, Daniela turned to walk away, each step feeling like she was being dragged into the ground. Suddenly, there was a shrieking sound in her ears and she whipped around only to be shoved up against the brick wall. 

 

She took a breath. 

 

She was bleeding.

 

And his hand was curled around her neck. 

 

“You think you can just lock me away? You think you can just lock our past away? Lock your darkness away? I  _ am _ you, Daniela,” he roared. She was shaking now - every cell in her body was shaking. 

 

“You’re not,” she coughed out before curling her own hands into fists. The energy burst from within her like a supernova of fear and anger. He flew backwards into the cage. Lifting her chin, she strode toward the shattered wall which she quickly repaired through manifestation. “You’re the only one with darkness here, my friend. And I hope this place stamps it out of you.” 

 

Knuckles white, she sealed the gate and vanished.

 

She had not known how his voice would haunt her for the years to come.

 

-

“Whoa, whoa, it’s just me,” the blond said, holding his hands up in surrender. Daniela blinked back her tears and stared at him, open-mouthed and wide-eyed. “Roman? Your best friend? The most charming man you’ve ever met?” 

 

She couldn’t even laugh at that, though her lips twitched. 

 

“Was it another nightmare?” 

 

“No,” she said, voice tight. Roman took both her hands then and squeezed them, his blue eyes searching hers. 

 

“You were screaming for them again, Daniela.” 

 

“My parents?”

 

“No,” he said, looking confused and grave all at once. “Your curses.” 


	7. "bloom"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Sure, Winx Club President."

 

_ April 23rd, 1951 _

 

“He’s the last one,” she breathed, blowing wisps of her dark hair out of her face as she tightened the thick cord of rope that bound together the two fat hands of the man before her. He was quivering with delicious fear, beady eyes bulging as he wriggled. “There, there,” she said, voice soothing. “You’re in good hands.” 

 

“The best,” the man next to her said, his toothy grin gleaming in the moonlight. Gingerly, he placed his hand on her arm and leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Go ahead, darling. It’ll be over soon. Then you’ll be just like me.”

 

Daniela blinked, narrowing her eyes as she surveyed the man, twirling the jagged dagger in one hand while raking her fingers through her hair with the other. 

 

“I want to hear you die,” she whispered, leaning in to rip off the far-too-wide strip of duct tape which had been plastered haphazardly over his caterpillar lips. 

 

“Please,” he panted. “I’ll do anything.” 

 

At that, the brunette scoffed and, impulsively, slashed the blade through his cheekbone. His screech quickened her own breath and she found herself trembling. 

 

“You took something of far greater value than preliminary findings to an immortal elixir,” she murmured, touching the tip of the blade delicately. In front of her, the ruddy-cheeked man swallowed. “You thought you were so clever, so innovative, so  _ genius _ , to take the findings from my father. Use them for you own gain, correct?” She shifted her gaze to meet his. 

 

“C-c-correct,” he stammered.

 

Daniela’s smile was effortless as much as it was soulless. 

 

“How painfully unoriginal of you.”

 

His symphony of screams lasted something short of twenty minutes. By its finale, Daniela’s navy blue pencil skirt was a canvas of soaked crimson. She was left breathless. Slowly, she turned to face her companion, who had watched in silence, green eyes twinkling.

“Evan,” she said, then kissed him.

 

_ October 3rd, 2015 - now _

 

“So what, you’ve just boxed her up in the hopes of getting her to love you again in time? What kind of a sick bastard -” 

 

“Watch your tongue,” the blond cuts him off, flashing Damon a toothless smile. “Need I remind you that you’re drinking my own blood?” The other man narrows his eyes and makes a face.

 

“You don’t need to. No offense but actual offense - your blood is the worst I’ve had in ages. Must be as disgusting as your soul,” Damon says, spreading his arms out before tossing the goblet he was offered to the side. He leans back against the stone wall and grimaces. “So, what’s your game plan, Evil Ken Doll?” 

 

“It’s Evan,” the man says, sighing in irritation as he shoots Damon a glare. At that, Damon lifts his brow. “Evan Bloom.” 

 

“Wait, I’m sorry,  _ what _ ?” Damon snickers. “ _ Bloom _ ? What the perfect last name for the asshole obsessed with Dani.” He closes his eyes briefly and tilts his head toward the ceiling. 

 

“You have to admit, we’re suited well for each other,” Evan says, pulling up a chair next to Damon’s squeaky mattress. 

 

“Sure, Winx Club President.”

 

Damon can  _ hear _ Evan’s rage in his silence. 

 

“You see, Damon, this goes beyond the trivial pursuit for love,” Evan says finally, and Damon opens his eyes slowly, squinting at the other man as he gestures vaguely to his left. “I’m supposed to be eternally youthful,” he continues, voice lowering some, “but circumstances have altered that, making me susceptible to -”

 

“Is this about saving your own ass? Is Dani, your equivalent, for like, a virgin sacrifice? Because I’m guessing you might know this, but -” Damon pauses before leaning forward on his palms and stage-whispering, “she’s no virgin, but she’s amazing in bed. Besides, the whole virgin mindset is pretty outdated, if you ask me.” 

 

Evan shifts his jaw and moves, hand curling into a fist. Damon opens his mouth but suddenly, in time with the blond’s hand, his chest constricts and he falls forward. 

 

“Shit,” he hisses. 

 

“You’ve got quite a mouth on you, I’ll give you that,” Evan says, standing as his chair clatters to the ground. As Damon struggles to breathe, he turns to exit. “The point is, Daniela is the best candidate to help me fix this. To fix me. And you’re a nuisance.” 

 

With that, the door slams behind him. 

 

Damon spends the next few minutes gasping for air, clinging to the dusty sheets around him. His eyes snap open when he’s able to take his first breath and he furrows his brow at the sight before him. 

 

“What took you so long?” He says, voice hoarse. 

 

_ October 3rd, 2015 - 10 minutes earlier  _

 

“The saving grace,” Bonnie says, grabbing a thumbtack to mark Damon and Daniela’s locations on the rough map of Summerland, “is that this place actually provides freaking maps.” 

 

“Yeah, because it’s  _ enormous _ ,” Caroline says, leaning over the table to observe Bonnie as she finishes the tracking spell. “Okay, so who do we grab first? Tweedle-Dee or Tweedle-Dum?” She pauses. “Tweedle-Dum being Damon.” 

 

“Damon’s likely awake, so I’d say get him first. He might have an idea of where Daniela is or why that guy took her.” Stefan steps up from behind them both, wrapping an arm around Caroline’s waist loosely. He lifts his gaze to meet Bonnie’s. “It’s your call, though.” 

 

“No, I agree,” Bonnie says. “We have a better chance of saving them both if we get to Damon first.” She purses her lips, then flips through the thick volume of spells she’d found lying around in Daniela’s library. “It’ll take a lot out of me, but it’s worth a shot.” 

 

“Just,” Caroline starts, biting the inside of her lip as she reaches forward to take Bonnie’s hand. She squeezes it and smiles weakly. “Don’t overdo it.” 

 

“It’s for Damon. It’s going to be so overdone it’ll be a disaster,” Bonnie laughs, before looking to Stefan. They all link hands and she begins the spell. 

 

-

 

Was teleportation supposed to make you feel  _ that _ woozy? 

“What took you so long?” Damon is saying, and Bonnie blinks rapidly, looking down as she’s on her knees. 

 

“It’s not every day you learn how to teleport three people,” she replies, frowning as she realizes that he’s chained to the bed. “Is our villain into BDSM and threesomes, or …?” Damon’s face confirms that her half-joke isn’t even close to being half-possible, to her relief. 

 

“Wanna break me out of here a little faster, or …?” 

 

“Thanking Bonnie might be a good start,” Caroline says, standing as she brushes off the dirt from her jeans. 

 

“I’ll thank her when I’m out of these chains and we’re out of this place, Blondie,” Damon retorts. “But thanks for the reminder. It’s truly appreciated.” He locks eyes with Stefan, who’s just standing now, too. He shifts his jaw and looks away. 

 

Bonnie moves over to him, her hands hovering over his as she works on breaking the spell. “Where’s he got Daniela? Do you know?” 

 

Damon meets her gaze and shakes his head, grimacing. 

 

“I know he’s keeping her in some glass box,” he says. “And she’s awake. He wants to use her to ‘fix him’ or something.” He scowls, then takes a stand as his chains disintegrate. “Thanks, Bon-bon,” he mutters, ignoring Caroline’s look of approval before they all head to the door. 

 

Half-expecting Evan to be standing on the other side, Damon kicks the door down and holds his breath. But as they step out, it’s clear that the blond is elsewhere. Bonnie steps forward to stand next to him. She places her hand on his arm. 

 

“Let’s go get your Snow White, then.” 

  
  



	8. "hellhole"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Great. A front-row seat to his worst nightmare ever.

 

  _October 7th, 2015 - 2 hours ago_

 

“How is my flower?” Evan asks as he saunters toward the glass cage. Daniela can just barely lift herself to sit up properly. Her wrists feel like they’ve morphed into some kind of crystallized glass, too. Strands of her reed brown hair stick to her forehead. How long has it been?

 

She can’t even cuss at him.

 

“Feeling up to helping me out yet?”

 

Daniela closes her eyes and shifts her jaw, placing her hands in her lap. She lost track of time after the first 36 hours. It’s become harder and harder to remember who she’d come with. Damon, Stefan, Bonnie, and - was it Candice? Daniela knew her name started with a ‘C’. Right?

 

“I have some water for you.” He manifests a glass of water before her and she snatches it from the floor. Water dribbles down her chin and neck, then she slams the glass back down onto the floor.  “You’re welcome.”

 

Dani doesn’t say anything.

 

She opens her eyes, however, and meets his gaze.

 

Evan shuts up and leaves, flexing his fingers as he does so.

 

_October 7th, 2015 - now_

 

“I found something,” Bonnie says quietly as Damon rubs at his eyes. He turns over to look at the time on the grandfather clock across the room. It’s 4 AM. He purses his lips and sits up.

 

“Yeah, Bon-bon?” She gestures for him to follow her out of the room. Not too carefully, Damon hops over Stefan, who is passed out on the carpeted floor, Caroline sleeping in the sofa next to him. He trails after the witch, who leads him down the hall to a room with double doors. “Wait,” he says as she moves to open them. He jabs a finger at the white door closest to him. “ _That_ wasn’t there before.”

 

“I know,” she whispers, frowning as she opens the doors. “I couldn’t sleep so I was walking around, trying to find something to lead us to her but then this room just kind of …”

 

“Appeared,” Damon finishes for her. “How very Harry Potter.” He purses his lips as he follows Bonnie inside. It’s an ornate room, white with a gold and silver trim. The carpet beneath them is a rich red and Damon really should catch up on sleep after this trip because he swears there are snakes slithering underneath their feet.

 

“It gets even better,” Bonnie says, gesturing to a small round table sitting in the center of the room. Damon lifts his brow as she pulls a milk-white sheet off an orb sitting upon it. Lowering her voice for dramatic effect, she flashes him a wry smile. “Come closer, my child. I will tell you the secrets of the universe for a cheap $55.” Damon scoffs, but walks closer anyways.

 

“What, is Dani a fortune teller or…?” He reaches forward to brush his fingers against the orb, which is a swirl of rich blues and greens. Bonnie is in the midst of protesting when -

 

-

 _What is this_?

 

Dammit, he can’t breathe again. His breath hitches before the back of his head smashes against a wooden wall behind him. Swallowing hard, he shifts and realizes that there’s only a sliver of light and space.

 

He’s in a wardrobe.

 

 _Scratch Harry Potter. This is some weird ass Narnia crap_ . Pressing his palm against the door in front of him, he pushes. It doesn’t open. It doesn’t even jostle. O- _kay_. Hesitantly, he murmurs Bonnie’s name. But there’s nothing except.

 

Except he hears someone breathing.

 

Damon turns, shoving a thick fur coat out of the way, and sees her.

 

Her eyes, a million shades of earth, are wide and she’s looking out toward the sliver of light. She doesn’t see him. Damon’s lips part, and then he jolts at the sound of a crash from outside the closet. He follows her gaze.

 

“Did you honestly think I wouldn’t have acted upon what I found that night, Al?” A large man in a gray suit is standing in their view, his fingers dripping with crimson. “That I wouldn’t have made my own elixir?” Damon can hear his sneer and he winces.

“ _You - I - I killed you_ ,” Alfeo whispers. He doesn’t sound quite frightened as he does shocked. Damon leans in closer, peering through the crack and then he smells it. It’s all-too familiar.

 

The odour of a raw, savage death.

 

Clara is recognizable only by her auburn tresses, which are sprinkled in now crusty, dried blood. It was clearly meticulous, the way she was ripped seam by seam, sinew and bone. Yet, there’s an artistic rush to it - Damon can taste bile flooding his throat. He’s been looking too long. Instinctively, he averts his gaze to Daniela, who is trembling next to him. Dumbly, he says her name.

 

“Dani.”

 

She’s clapping her hands over her mouth, which he catches a brief glimpse of. It’s bruised. He furrows his brow and tears his gaze away from her.

 

Alfeo looks straight at him and Damon wonders if the man can see him.

 

“Al,” he says loudly. But neither him nor the gray-suit man respond.

 

“Give me the real version,” Gray Suit is saying. “The one that will make me young again.” He rakes his fingers through his sparse white hairs. The back of his neck, which is barely visible, looks bruised with red.

 

The other man shakes his head slowly, and something in Damon sinks. He’d forgotten how many ridges there were in Alfeo’s face, how light Clara’s hair had been -

 

“ _No,_ ” Daniela whispers, and she shakes as Gray Suit moves to slit her father’s throat. Damon doesn’t remember the last time blood looked so grotesque. It’s just flooding out of Alfeo until it’s not.

 

“Shame,” Gray Suit says, kicking Alfeo’s corpse so that it slumps onto the floor from the desk he’d been sitting at, “that your daughter isn’t here. I’m sure she would have been more agreeable to work with.”

 

Damon can’t watch anymore. He looks at Dani, instead. She’s biting into her palm, blinking rapidly through her tears. _She’s so young. They_ both _had been. She was so young and Alfeo and Clara and Leon_ -

 

Her birthday.

 

Today was her birthday.

 

Damon’s knuckles gleam ivory as he pounds his fists against the closet door.

 

“Why,” he says, “Won’t. You. _Open_.”

 

But not a second later, he falls forward as they do.

 

He leaps to his feet, ready to strangle Gray Suit when he realizes that it’s suddenly much cooler and a breeze is rippling through his hair. He looks around wildly. On the horizon is a green blanket of grass, lilies blowing in the wind.

 

He wishes he hadn’t memorized her scream, but he whips around and tears across the hill toward her. She’s leaning back against a tree trunk, clutching her abdomen. Damon kneels down beside her and brushes a hand across her forehead.

 

“Dani,” he says, searching her gaze desperately, “what happened?”

 

She looks up to him - _finally_ \- and bites her lip.

 

“Evan,” she says, and it’s a breathy little exhale of relief. It’s a stab. Damon draws his hand back and frowns, brow furrowed in confusion before he’s knocked over by Snake Tats himself.

 

He’s pressing a cloth against her forehead and Damon leans back on his palms, surveying them as Evan whispers something in Alchemese - is that a thing? - and kisses the top of her head. Damon rolls his eyes at that.

 

Great. A front-row seat to his worst nightmare ever.

 

“I told you to be more careful,” Evan is saying, clicking his tongue as he applies the contents of a vial to her wound. It’s a relatively large flesh wound. Was she shot? Thankfully, at Evan’s comment, Daniela grimaces.

 

“Now is _not_ the time to say I told you so,” she mutters.

 

“Now is not the time for this spectacle, really,” Damon retorts, glaring at her. “I’m supposed to be saving you with Bonnie, and you pull this on me? Maybe I won’t save you after all. How do you feel about _that_ , huh, Dani?” He gets to his feet and starts down the hill.

 

But then she’s screaming again and he’s at her side.

 

He places a hand on the tree trunk to steady himself. It’s then that he sees it. It’s the tree - Summerland. He looks behind them, and sure enough, there’s the collection of buildings she must have dreamed up. Damon looks down toward Dani questioningly.

 

“Thanks for the hint, I guess,” he says, before trotting down the hill toward the building they’d stayed in.

 

Three steps away from the front door, he hears it. It’s not her scream, but another’s. Damon speeds toward the sound, finding himself standing at the edge of a cliff. Where was this from his hilltop view? He purses his lips and leans in somewhat to confirm if this was indeed where the screams were coming from.

 

“Help! _Please_ ,” someone is screaming over and over. He raises his eyebrows. It was time to make some questionable decisions.

 

He expects to break something on the way down.

 

He doesn’t.

 

Damon rubs at his eyes - there’s dust and sand everywhere. He stumbles his way forward. Just forward. If he gets lost, it’s okay. _This isn’t real_ , he mumbles to himself. _This isn’t_ real.

 

But after a while, he starts to forget what ‘this’ is supposed to be.

 

There’s nothing.

 

And then there’s glass.

 

He walks straight into it, and coughs as he falls backward on his palms. Wincing, he slowly sits up, half-expecting to be trapped in the cage himself. Damon blinks as Evan pounds his fist against the wall, eyes bloodshot.

 

“ _Help_!” He’s screaming, the sound of his voice wretched and scraping against Damon’s eardrums. The blond’s neat, combed hair is a travesty. It’s straw in a sand dune sitting atop his head. “Daniela!” Damon flinches at her name. “Daniela, you can’t leave me in here forever,” Evan snarls, looking straight past Damon. The vampire’s chest tightens. “You and I, we’re the same! I just want to be happy and so do you,” he whispers. “I’ll do it - I’ll bring them back. I’ll bring them back if you save me. If you keep me from dying from my father’s curse. I’ll save your parents if you save me!” He swallows, voice cracking. “I’m sorry I lied!” He’s whining now, like a child. Damon doesn’t feel smug. He’s disgusted.

 

“You pathetic shit,” Damon murmurs as he steps round each wall, watching as Evan drops to his knees and hits the wall repeatedly.

 

“What would you have done? Your father and my father were friends once,” he says, voice hoarse now. “We can mend what’s been torn!” Damon nearly laughs, but then -

 

“Mend what’s been torn? You can mend my mother’s limbs? My father’s throat? Their hearts?”

 

Damon spins around.

 

_What year is it?_

 

Daniela is standing in the centre of it all, her chestnut hair whipping about her face. She is ferocious, her eyes glinting in the hot, beating sun. But there’s not a bead of sweat on her. She’s wearing worn motorcycle boots and a leather jacket Damon knows he is ripping off of her in another world. In another life. He wets his lips, feeling for the first time just how parched he is.

 

“I can,” Evan replies, slumped against the glass. “Just take me out of here. It’s all - it’s just - a replay - of all the awful things I’ve done - all the awful people I’ve played -”

 

“I won’t,” Daniela says firmly, narrowing her eyes. And for the first time, Damon meets her gaze and feels a twinge of fear. “You lied to me,” she says. “You’ve been posing this entire time. Did you know? Did you know that he’d come for them?”

 

“P- _please_ ,” is all Evan can say. Damon glances toward the blond, who is staring at Daniela with a tender terror.

 

And then she’s gone and he’s howling for her.

 

“Damon?” He turns slowly, eyes widening and then he sighs in relief.

 

“Bon-”

 

He doesn’t get a chance to finish, as her hand collides against his cheek.

 

“What the hell?!”

 

“I told you not to touch the damn thing,” Bonnie scolds him, and he jumps in his seat - when did he get back? His eyes dart around them. They’re back in the room, the orb perched on the table before them. He steps back, away from it. “What’d you see?”

 

“What,” he gasps, looking to his best friend with wide eyes. “You mean, you didn’t - you didn’t -”

 

“I didn’t touch it, so I didn’t see anything. But _you_ did. Did you find anything that can help?” He searches her gaze for a moment. Then he nods.

 

“Uh, yeah,” he says. “I did. I - I know where he’s keeping her. Exactly where.”

 

“Good,” she sighs, then lifts her brow at his expression. “Not good?”

 

“Not good,” he confirms, walking toward the doors. “Get Hero Hair and Barbie. We’re going down Rabbit Hellhole.”


	9. "leap"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you guys sure about this?”
> 
> There’s a beat and he furrows his brow. Of course they aren’t -
> 
> “Would we be here if we weren’t?” Bonnie takes his hand, interlacing their fingers. Damon’s lips twitch at the corner.

 

_ October 7th, 2015 - 2 minutes ago _

 

“You sure about this?” Stefan asks, taking a few steps forward to stand by Damon. His brow is knit together in typical Serious, Worried Hero fashion. Damon shifts his jaw and shrugs. 

 

“It’s the best lead we’ve got,” he says, then turns to face all of them: his brother, Bonnie, and Caroline. He licks his lips and turns back to the expanse of darkness just a step away. “Are  _ you _ guys sure about this?”

 

There’s a beat and he furrows his brow. Of course they aren’t -

 

“Would we be here if we weren’t?” Bonnie takes his hand, interlacing their fingers. Damon’s lips twitch at the corner. He glances at Stefan, who smiles wryly before taking his other hand. Caroline takes Stefan’s and gives Damon her best ‘ _ let’s hope this works _ ’ smile. For once, he agrees with Sunshine Barbie. 

 

His three companions look to him. Damon looks down into the nothingness. 

 

And then they leap into it. 

 

_ October 7th, 2015 - 1 minute ago  _

 

It’s not like the first time. 

 

He can hear the sands blowing in a frenzy of wind from halfway down to the surface. His face feels like it could peel off of his skull. And he can’t hear a scream. He can’t hear her scream. 

 

_ Dani _ , he thinks, before they crash into the ground. 

 

_ October 7th, 2015 - now _

 

His mouth tastes like salt. He opens his eyes and sunlight slashes away at his eyeballs. Wincing, he gets up and scans his surroundings. He’s taken five steps before finally noticing it. 

 

There’s no sand.

He glances down at his feet. They’re soaked, submerged into a thin sheet of cool water. Lips parting, Damon bends down and scoops up a handful, letting the water trickle down his palm and plop back down. 

 

“Stefan? Bonnie?” He looks around. 

 

Nothing. 

 

Not even Caroline.

 

Well, this was his worst idea today. 

 

_ October 7th, 2015 - now _

 

“Damon?” Bonnie whispers. She’s sitting up now, hair dripping wet. He’d said sand. He’d clearly said sand. She reaches up to touch her hair, pursing her lips before standing slowly. 

 

A long, winding stream of turquoise water lies before her.  Compelled to walk forward, she does. 

 

Thirty-one steps. 

 

Thirty-two steps. 

 

Thirty-three. 

 

She stops counting after sixty-seven, and runs toward the glass box in front of her. Daniela is curled up in one corner, looking paler than usual. She’s not awake. 

 

“Daniela!” Bonnie shouts against the glass. She steps around, kneeling down right at the corner. “Daniela, it’s Bonnie -” 

 

“She can’t hear you,” someone says from behind. Bonnie leaps to her feet and whips around, glaring at Evan. 

 

“Where’s Damon?” Her jaw tenses as she meets the man’s gaze. He laughs and gestures to the river. 

 

“He’s preoccupied,” he says, and steps forward. Bonnie stares at him, unmoving. “You’re Bonnie Bennett, then?” 

 

“The one and only,” she says with a mirthless smile. Folding her arms across her chest, she leans back against the glass wall. 

 

“And you and your friends think you can just waltz into Shadowland without me noticing?” Evan scoffs, brushing a thumb across her cheekbone. Bonnie grimaces and shoves him backward. 

 

“Don’t touch me,” she says coolly. “It’s not that we didn’t think you’d notice - and Shadowland? Really? I sincerely hope it wasn’t Daniela who named it that-” Evan’s hand clamps around her throat and she chokes. Her hand curls into a fist. 

 

“Be thankful I’m not throwing you in there,” he says, narrowing his eyes. The two simply glare at each other. Then he releases her and steps back, turning away. 

 

“Why, because you know exactly what that’s like? Because Daniela just left you there because you lied to her?” 

 

Evan swivels around, eyes bulging. 

 

“How do you know that? Who told you-”

 

_ Clang!  _

 

Bonnie’s eyes widen as the blond collapses, like a ragdoll. She looks up and laughs softly. 

 

“Who knew they kept shovels in hell?” Damon murmurs as he tosses a rusty shovel to the side, then steps forward to hug her. “Are you okay?” He asks against her hair. He pulls away and purses his lips as he examines her. 

 

“I’m okay,” Bonnie replies, smiling wryly. “Where were you, I didn’t even  _ see _ you-”

 

“It must have been some cloaking spell-thing,” Damon says, shrugging with one shoulder before he steps toward the glass, frowning deeply at the sight of Daniela. “Is she-?”

 

Bonnie nods, face solemn. 

 

“Have you seen Stefan or Caroline?” 

 

“Nope,” Damon says, popping the ‘p’. “They must still be in River Unicorn Styx or something.” He turns to her and lifts his brow. “Think you can lift the spell?” 

 

“I can  _ try _ .”

_ October 7th, 2015 - 15 minutes later _

 

“Damon!” Bonnie and Damon turn to face the voice. It’s Stefan, jogging up toward them with Caroline following. They’re soaking wet and Caroline’s got a sling on her arm. Bonnie opens her mouth to ask what happened, but then Caroline’s wrapping her good arm around the witch’s neck. 

 

“Oh-  _ whoa _ ,” Bonnie says, nearly stumbling backwards. “Caroline, what happened?” She pulls back but Caroline’s shaking her head, offering her a weak smile. Bonnie turns to Stefan, who shakes his head subtly. Now is not the time. 

 

They all face the glass.

 

“And I thought waking Elena up was going to be the hardest thing to do,” Bonnie says, laughing bitterly. 

 

“Is there a spell or…?” 

 

“No.” The dark-haired witch bites her lip and turns to the other three. “We’re going to have to wake Evan up.” Damon’s eyes widen a fraction and he opens his mouth to protest- “We have to know how  _ he _ got out of there. It’s the only way.” 

 

Damon exchanges a glance with Stefan, then sighs in irritation. 

 

“Fine,” he says. “But if he does  _ anything _ -”

 

“Hey,” Bonnie cuts him off. “You have that shovel of yours. And your hands. Do with him what you will.” 

 

Damon smiles - briefly - and nods. 

 

_ October 7th, 2015 - 1 hour later _

 

He splutters, eyelashes beating together like moth’s wings as he wakes. Damon scowls, placing the pitcher of water away. Evan moves to stand but blinks, pulled back into the seat Bonnie has magicked him in. He snarls. 

 

“You  _ idiots _ ,” he starts, eyeing each of them. He opens his mouth but Damon holds up a hand. 

 

“Save the villainous monologue. We’ll actually need it in a bit,” the vampire says, grinning crookedly as he leans in. “You’re going to help us break out Dani.” 

Evan’s laugh is booming. It echoes throughout the valley. 

 

“Let’s hope your persuasive skills are impeccable, then,” the man says, sing-song. But then the witch leans in and presses her fingers to his temples. “What,” he whispers suddenly, squirming in his chair. “Wait, you haven’t learned that- you’re not supposed to-” 

 

“Daniela keeps a great library, did you know that? And I picked something up from some light reading last night,” Bonnie explains, lips curving. “I’m no alchemist, but I know strong spells when I see them.” 

 

Damon watches as Bonnie digs her nails deeper into the man’s temples. He smiles to himself as Evan screams. 

 

“Okay!” He shouts at last. “Okay, fine! Okay!” 

 

Beside him, Caroline lets out a disbelieving laugh. This was getting too easy. 

 

“You’re supposed to,” he coughs, wiping some blood away with his sleeve, “you’re supposed to make peace with yourself.” Damon tears his gaze away from the crimson and swallows. 

 

“Wait, that’s not how you got out,” Caroline is saying. “You couldn’t have made peace with yourself. You’re still desperate for her help with something.” At that, Evan looks up at her with a weak smirk. 

 

“Clever girlfriend you’ve got there,” he says, directing his gaze to Stefan, who simply stares at him. “ _ I  _ cheated.” 

 

“Why am I not surprised?” Damon spreads his arms as he speaks, scoffing as he shakes his head to himself. “How is she supposed to make peace with herself? It looks like she’s  _ dying _ in there.” He pauses, then frowns. “You - when you were in there. It was a replay of all the awful things you’ve ever done. All the awful people you’ve played,” he says, echoing Evan’s words from the orb. The alchemist squints at him. “It’s the same for her.” 

 

Damon looks toward the blond and purses his lips. 

 

“How did you cheat?” Stefan asks. Evan’s green eyes move from one Salvatore to the next. 

 

“I tethered my soul to another’s, years ago. It took me a while, but I managed to focus all the horrible things and redirect them to that soul instead of mine. I trapped them without really even trapping them,” he explains, glancing toward his lap. Damon looks aside, then frowns. 

 

“You’re looking awfully guilty about your escape,” Damon observes. “Is that soul still trapped in your pile of crap?” Evan nods once. 

 

“If you want an easy way out for her,” Evan says, nodding toward the still-unconscious Dani, “you’ll have to do the same. Substitutes are the simplest way.” 

 

“And if we don’t?” Caroline interjects, lifting her chin. Evan looks down at his lap again. 

 

“She could be there for decades, centuries, even, before she comes to terms with herself on her own,” he says, shrugging. “I’m a patient man. I doubt any of  _ you _ are.” Coughing again, he tilts his head back toward the sun-stained sky. 

 

“Well, she’s not alone,” Damon says, scowling as he turns back toward the glass. “We’ll help her.” Evan laughs weakly at that, coughing a few more times. “And then,” Damon adds, “we’ll stick you back in here. Free that other soul.” He turns to face the alchemist, who’s smiling wryly at nothing in particular. 

 

Stefan and Caroline exchange glances. Bonnie looks toward Damon.

 

“You look awfully chipper about that.” Stefan locks his jaw. Damon’s brow twitches. “Who did you exchange your soul for?” 

 

Evan glances between all of them and barks out a laugh. Damon inhales, about to punch the answer out of him when-

 

“It was so easy,” he whispers, chuckling to himself. “Children are the easiest. They’re so innocent, so,  _ so dumb _ , you know?” When Evan lifts his gaze to meet Damon’s, he sees it. 

 

A little girl with hair as dark as his, peeking out from the doorframe. 

 

She always wore yellow and green ribbons in her hair - the same shade of green in Evan’s beady eyes. 

 

“No,” Stefan is saying, but Damon lets out a shaky exhale. 

 

They never saw her again. 

 

She died in the fire. 

 

She died -

 

Didn’t she?

 

“She was there that night,” Evan says, like he’s lost in a world from ages ago, too, “when I was procuring items to help Daniela with. For her revenge. I think, really, she wanted to see you, too. But she was scared. So she sent me instead.” 

 

_ Father? Where is she? Is she hurt? Is she- _

 

_ She’s alive. That is all you need. A family friend has taken her. She will receive the proper care elsewhere. You need not worry like a  _ child _ , Damon. _

 

It had been him - Evan was the bastard who had taken Daniela away from Mystic Falls. Evan had returned, for Daniela - for  _ himself _ . 

 

“What did you do,” he says, ears ringing as he grabs Evan by the collar. The blond is laughing. 

 

“How lucky of me, to have come that night of chaos,” Evan is saying, and Damon can hear her now. 

 

_ She’s a monster! She’s a monster and she’s got you  and Stefan under a spell- _

 

He’d taken her by the shoulders and shook her so hard he later thought he might have shattered her bones. 

 

_ Shut up. You don’t know anything. I love her. I love - _

 

“Katherine,” Damon whispers. 

 

“A lovely woman,” Evan comments, smirking. “She was all for it. I needed security. She needed the problem to be taken care of. And her friend Emily was willing to help. So it was done that night. The plan went to shit for her, but it never did for me.” 

 

Damon can hear Stefan’s heart racing. 

 

Or is it his own?

 

“She was singing,” Evan whispers. “Crying in the woods. Confused. And singing. Like  a fool. She made it so easy,” he laughs to himself. “She sang like a bird. Like a -”

 

“Nightingale,” Damon finishes for him. He’s shaking. “You goddamn bastard.” 

 

He picks up the shovel, ignoring Caroline and Bonnie’s protesting shouts.

 

He doesn’t see anything as he does it. 

 

He only hears Daniela calling her name as they play in a garden, in a time - in a world - so far away. 

 

_ Evelina _ . 

 

His sister.

 


	10. "caution"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What did you do,” Caroline whispers. 
> 
> He bites back his response.

 

_ September 20th, 1864  _

 

“Now, miss,” Della sighs, tugging the bony, freckled arm of the youngest Salvatore toward her, away from the doorjamb. The girl wriggles her way out of the maid’s grasp, however, and stomps into the room.  _ Ah, there goes the floor _ , Della laments, staring after the trail of mud the brat left behind. 

 

“You promised me  _ today _ ,” Evelina says upon entering, chin lifted with all the haughtiness of her father. Today, she wears her red dress - the one that makes her elbows itch - because it is her brother’s favourite colour. 

 

Apparently, Miss Katherine had the same idea.

 

They are entangled in one another. Her eyes do not burn. She does not avert her gaze. She meets Katherine’s steel gaze. The older woman’s dress is left abandoned on the floor. (Evelina nearly stepped on it when she marched in.) Of course, Miss Katherine’s dress is lovelier, having been made for a woman as beautiful and intricate and complex as herself. 

 

It takes a few seconds, but Evelina’s eyes find her brother’s face. 

 

He does not see her. 

 

(Somehow, she had expected him to be different than Stefan from yesterday.) 

 

The girl’s chin quivers. 

 

“Dam _ o _ n,” she says, her voice louder this time. She counts the seconds in her head. 

 

One. Two. Three. Four. Five - maybe she should count slower.

 

On the sixth second, his eyes find hers, only after Katherine takes his chin and directs his head toward his sister. And finally, he gets up. Evelina opens her mouth -

 

“What are you doing in here,” he says, taking her right shoulder and ushering her out of his bedroom before Evelina can speak again. “I told you not to bother me, Evelina, can’t you do something as simple as that -”

 

“You promised me,” Evelina repeats, but her voice has shrunk. They are standing in the hall, now, Damon’s shirt unbuttoned and rumpled and torn - Evelina hates Katherine. She makes a face. “You promised me that you would go with me to -” 

 

“I’m busy,” her brother cuts in, sighing like Della did. Evelina stops. Her shoulders sink with the disappointment she’s exhausted of feeling. 

 

So, naturally, she shoves him. 

 

“What the -”

 

“Look at you! She’s a monster! She’s a monster and she’s got you and Stefan under a spell-” 

 

And then, her brother shoves her back. He takes her by the shoulders and shakes her as he speaks, every word sending a shiver to her soul. There is something in his eyes she’s never seen before. 

 

“Shut up,” he snarls. “You don’t know anything. I love her. I  _ love  _ Katherine -” 

 

Evelina stumbles backward into the staircase railing. Damon stares at her. She stares back, eyes wide and wet. Her brother lets go of her, and jams his trembling hands into his pockets.

 

“Lina -” 

 

The girl races down the stairs, knocking Della the maid into the wall. 

 

Della doesn’t see the brat for four days. And then she never sees her again. 

 

_ October 7th, 2015 - now _

 

Evan’s blood is not black as he expected. It is red, like anyone else’s - like his, like Daniela’s. 

 

Damon is drenched in it. He is enveloped by the silence, which is broken only by the ragged sounds of everyone else’s breaths around him. Are they really surprised? 

 

“What did you do,” Caroline whispers. 

 

He bites back his response.

 

“How do you know killing him didn’t lock her soul in forever?  _ Their  _ souls? How are you not dead? Aren't you _bound_ to him?”

 

Caroline needs to shut up. He shifts his jaw and stands, his feet rooted in the ground. She’s right, of course. Did killing Evan just - no. He needed out of this - and any - realm. He touched Lina. He cursed her. 

 

He waits for a reproachful and disappointed ‘ _ Damon _ ’ from Stefan, but his brother simply blinks and nods as their gazes meet. They understand each other, then. 

 

“Now that he’s gone, and Damon is clearly alive, we need to figure out how to free them,” Bonnie resolves aloud for everyone, stepping over Evan’s body and placing her fingers on the cool glass. Hesitantly, the group shift their gazes over to Daniela, still sleeping. 

 

Life seemed to ebb out of her.

 

The distance between him and Daniela had stretched out for nearly a century without his knowing, and now? Now, he was separated from her by a sheet of glass and magical, emotional chaos. 

 

Why did his girls always fall asleep on him? 

 

He pushes the sting of Elena away.

 

“Peace,” he says. “She needs to make peace with herself. I don’t know what kind of crap she’s gotten herself into since becoming immortal, but by the looks of it, she’s one-upping Stefan on the patronising and heroic self-loathing.” 

 

“So,” Bonnie says, “we should find a way to help her. To get through to her, somehow.” Her fingers tap against the glass, dark eyes squinting. 

 

“Isn’t there some kind of spell? Or shouldn’t there be?” Damon turns to face Caroline, who is studiously avoiding both his gaze and the sight of Evan. 

 

“For what, waking her up -”

 

“I mean,” Caroline cuts in, keeping her blue eyes on Daniela, “to access her mind. We can’t touch her, so we can’t help her that way, but couldn’t we still do that? Or try? With magic?” 

 

Damon turns to his brother.

 

“You’ve been characteristically quiet. What’s on your mind, little brother?”

_ August 10th, 1922 _

 

“Ugh, you sound like a dog simpering for his master,” Rebekah groans, shoving their last meal to the floor. “I don’t  _ know  _ where Klaus is. Late, evidently.” Her fingers reach over, painted in delicious crimson, to frame Stefan’s chin. “He’ll come soon, I’m sure.” 

 

Stefan doesn’t turn to the blonde. His eyes have stumbled their way toward a familiar figure, dressed in green, sitting by the entrance. Her hair comes in rich, dark waves. He knows her. 

 

“What is it now?” 

 

“Nothing,” he says, gaze unfocused once more as the crowd on the dancefloor continues to sway and swing. But then he hears it. Her voice. 

 

“ _ There you are _ ,” she is saying. He hears her lips curl into that smile - the one she offered to him in loving exasperation -

 

“Oh,  _ finally _ ,” Rebekah sighs, pointing over to the doors, “Nik’s there, see? And he brought a friend.” Stefan looks up sharply. 

 

Sure enough, the brunette has risen and taken the arm of his friend. Her face is still obscured at this angle, but Stefan watches as she leans up and whispers into Klaus’ ear. The man breathes out a laugh reserved for old friends, and then they turn.

 

Daniela?

 

“Who’s that?” Rebekah touches Stefan’s arm - presses on it, really. “Who’s Daniela? Do you know her?” 

 

He doesn’t have the time to answer. Klaus steps up to them, smirking. 

 

“Sorry, Stefan, for the wait. I had to deal with something.”

 

Stefan purses his lips and shrugs, eyes itching for Daniela’s face. Instead, he focuses on her gloved hands, one of which are wrapped around his companion’s arm. What would Damon think -

 

“Who’s this?” Rebekah asks impatiently, gesturing vaguely to Dani.

 

“A friend,” Klaus says. “Daniela Auguste.” 

 

Stefan looks at her, finding her face completely unaltered, save for a sharpness in her eyes he had not known in the past. But they were children. They were human, all of them. 

 

“Stefan knows her,” Rebekah says, failing to mask her jealousy. Klaus’ eyebrows do not shoot up. 

 

“Yes, I know,” Klaus says dismissively. “Childhood friends and all.”

 

He knew? He knew that and didn’t bother to -

 

It figured. 

 

“How are you alive? Are you …?” Was she like him? Like Klaus? Like Damon? Did she feed, too? Would she understand, make Damon understand -

 

“I’m not a vampire,” Daniela says gently, as if sensing Stefan’s anticipation. 

 

“Then how -”

 

“Let the woman have a seat first, will you, Stefan?” Klaus laughs, gesturing to the empty space where the rolled over body at their feet used to sit. Daniela obliges, sliding into the space next to Stefan. She smells like peppermint, he notes, as she turns, her hair bouncing. 

 

“My father,” she says simply. “Alchemy was his trade, d’you remember?” 

 

She expects him to have forgotten. It’s nearly insulting.

 

He says nothing, just stares at her expectantly. Has she seen Damon at all?

 

“He discovered how to invent immortality, so to speak,” Daniela says, before taking a sip of his booze, her lips staining the rim of the glass the way his would, except the crimson is her lipstick, and not someone’s essence of life. “That is why my family moved to Mystic Falls. And that is why he died.” 

 

“They told us,” Stefan says, then stops. His father had lied, and that was the least surprising part of this whole ordeal. “They said you’d been sent away to live with distant family.” Damon had tried to find her. But when he came home several weeks later, Stefan decided he never wanted his brother to leave again. (He did, of course.) 

 

“I wasn’t,” Daniela replies, and she turns when Klaus says something under his breath. That is when Stefan notices a stain of blood, like a blemish, snaking its way out of the shadow of her glove. 

 

(She would later tell him, drunk on wine and self-pity, that although she was no vampire, she certainly could be just as monstrous.)

 

“What are you doing here?” 

 

Klaus gives him a Look, indicating that he wasn’t finished his thought with the brunette. Daniela turns to face Stefan again and smiles grimly.

 

“Celebrating my birthday.” 

 

_ October 7th, 2015 - 1 hour later  _

 

“So,” Damon says, “she pulled a Lexi and tried to bring you back around to the flip side of humanity.” He thumbs at the dry blood stains on his jacket. Stefan nods. The two brothers sit on a rock not too far from the glass cage. They had finally gotten rid of Evan’s body; they let his body plop into the stream. The water had gushed all around him before what was left of the blond dissipated, turning the water a dull crimson. “That sounds like her.”

 

“Doesn’t it?” Stefan shifts his jaw. “She told me that she killed people.” 

 

Damon doesn’t raise his eyebrows. 

 

“Does that sound like her?”

 

“I don’t really know who she is now, do I?” Damon says, swallowing back a derisive laugh. He couldn’t blame her. He was beginning to see he couldn’t blame himself, either. Life had fucked both of them up. There was nobody to point fingers at, sadly.

 

“She killed the people responsible for her parents’ death,” Stefan continues. 

 

“Ah,” Damon says, as if it makes perfect sense. (In a way, it does.) 

 

“And she found them with Evan’s help -”  

 

“Of course. How helpful of Prince Charming,” Damon cuts in, smiling his sweet smile at the stream below them. 

 

“No, Damon, listen,” Stefan says tiredly enough that Damon shuts up. “He knew a way to link their minds without having to touch them. And she told me that way.” The dark-haired of the two stands.

 

“Tell Bonnie,” he says, walking off to the cage. 

 

“Wait -”

 

“Just teach it to Bonnie,” Damon shouts impatiently. 

 

_ October 7th, 2015 - 1 hour and a half later _

 

He had never entertained the idea of slipping into Daniela’s mind. A while ago, he did not even know she was alive. That he would go to another realm for her. But Bonnie’s spell - he would never refer to it as the blond dragon’s - had him zipping through it. 

 

Damon was in a house. 

 

Daniela’s childhood house - the one not in quaint Mystic Falls, but in Florence. He knew it because there was Daniela’s sketchbook lying on the circular table in the kitchen. He knew it because there was Clara Auguste’s apron draped across the back of a wooden chair. 

 

“Dani?” he calls out, stepping over a stack of papers drowning with alchemical symbols. He walks up a spiraling set of stairs to find a stretch of a hallway. If this was a movie, he would be insanely creeped out. There was no colour.

 

He glances down at his hands. 

 

Nothing. Not a speck of saturation.

 

There was a door at the end of the hall. It was the only one that was shut.  _ Bingo _ , Damon decides, as he walks up to it and turns the knob. 

 

He falls into the sky.

 

_ April 23rd, 1951 _

 

“He’s the last one,” she breathed, blowing wisps of her dark hair out of her face as she tightened the thick cord of rope that bound together the two hands of the man before her. He sat very still, keeping his eyes on her the whole time. “There, there,” she said, voice soothing. “You’re in good hands.” But then she stopped.

Damon stares at her. 

 

“What are you -” 

 

Evan steps up from behind and wraps his arms around her waist. 

 

“Go ahead, darling. It’ll be over soon. Then you’ll be just like me.”

 

Daniela blinks and shoves him away, stepping forward as she rips the duct tape away from Damon’s mouth. Damon yelps.

 

“What the  _ hell _ , Dani -”

 

“What are you doing here?”  She forages his gaze for understanding. Then, her own gaze falls on his hands. Quickly, she undoes the ropes. Damon smiles wryly. 

 

“I’m here to rescue you, Aurora.” 

 

Evan tackles him to the floor. 

 

_ April 23rd, 1951 _

 

This time, the eighth, she slices into his palm before recognizing him. 

 

_ April 23rd, 1951 _

 

Impatient, he kisses her when she bends in to threaten him. Daniela stumbles backward but before Evan can throw him to the ground, Damon speeds out of the ropes and takes Dani’s hand, racing out into the street. 

 

“Will you,” he shouts, “just listen to me?” 

 

The brunette opens her mouth to protest. Then shuts it. 

 

“Okay,” Damon blurts out. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I’m sorry I didn’t go after you - in my defense, I - no, that’s not important - Daniela, please come back,” he says, eyes wide and blue. Daniela stares at him. “This isn’t real. None of it is. I mean, it happened - you killed this guy -” 

 

“He killed my parents,” Daniela says suddenly. Brokenly. Damon blinks. Licks his lips. Nods.

 

“I know. Dani, I know, but this isn’t  _ you  _ -” 

 

“I already killed him, Damon. I killed him and I keep killing him in my mind. It  _ is _ who I am. I’m not that child you proposed to. I’m not flowery Daniela -”

 

“Damn you,” Damon says, raising his voice once more. “I have killed so many people.  _ So _ many. Some I’ve lingered on, sure, they replay in my mind like a goddamn movie reel - but most of them? Most of them I don’t even remember. I don’t remember their names. Their faces. I don’t even  _ care _ !” He spreads his arms and glares at the woman before him. He takes a step toward her and Daniela stills. When he places his hands on her shoulders, she does not even breathe. “You’ve clearly messed things up. But all of us have. How can you ever move forward without letting this the fuck go?” 

 

“Damon,” Daniela says, looking to the ground. He lifts her chin. 

 

“You’re not the girl I fell in love with. I get that. But I’m not the boy you loved, either,” he says, his gaze branding its blue into her brown. “And I don’t -”

 

“Care?” 

 

“Yeah,” he says, voice quieter. “I don’t care.”

 

Daniela laughs and takes a step back. Damon’s hands fall to his sides. 

 

“I don’t,” she starts, running a hand through her hair. He can see a sheen of tears in her eyes. “I don’t know if I can do this.” 

 

“What, us? We don’t have to -”

 

“No,” Daniela cuts in, pressing her lips together. “Just. Live. I don’t know if I can go on another moment. I have spent years stuck. Just stuck in this moment. In my parents’ death. In leaving you. I don’t know how to move on, and I’m so fucking scared that I can’t. I wish, sometimes, that I could be like you. A vampire. Then I could -”

 

“What, turn it all off?” Damon approaches her once more, slower. He does not touch her this time. “I’ve watched my brother nearly destroy himself doing that. I’ve watched my girlfriend do the same. And I actually destroyed my own life pulling  _ that  _ shit,” he continues, scoffing. “You’re not a vampire. You’re an immortal goddamn alchemist with issues like everyone else. And while you can’t turn it off, that means all this time, you’ve been living. You’ve been trying. Doesn’t that count for something? You didn’t have that to fall back on.” 

 

“I’ve been existing,” Daniela corrects him, not moving further from him. She meets his gaze. Her voice is a whisper. “Why do you want to save me?”

 

_ Screw it. _

 

Damon takes both her hands and presses his lips to each knuckle. The gesture is one from their childhood, and it was half-forgotten, half-wished for. He watches her eyes dim with quiet understanding. 

 

“I want to learn who you are,” he whispers back to her, his lips moving against her skin. “I want to learn how to love you.” 

 

“What about Elena?”

 

“Elena,” Damon starts, smiling wistfully, “told me to start my own life. And, it’s taken me goddamn months, but -”

 

“Damon,” Daniela says. 

 

“But,” Damon repeats, blinking very hard, “I think I finally want to. I want to start it and I’d like to start it by getting to know you. I don’t think I can do so if you’re sulking in the corners of your mind, though.” At that, Daniela cracks a weak smile.

 

“I don’t know if I can carry on past the weight of us,” she admits quietly. 

 

“So we won’t,” Damon resolves, squeezing her hands. “Fuck carrying on. We’ll build. We’ll build on top of that shit.” 

 

Daniela laughs.

 

“I’m so relieved,” she says. At Damon’s raised eyebrow, she explains. “You had me believing your ‘I’m Too Cool and Murderous to Feel Things’ for a second earlier.” 

 

“Well,” Damon says, a grin sliding onto his features. “I  _ am _ really cool. And I am quite murderous. Remember Evan?”

 

“ _ No _ .”

 

“Look, I’ll explain later, but -”

 

Daniela kisses him, and their world shifts to something real and bright. 

 

_ October 31st, 2015 _

 

“I know that we agreed to take this whole ‘getting to know each other’ thing slow,” Damon says from behind her, placing a hand on the small of her back, “but you dressing up as zombie-slaying Jane Austen is too much.”

 

“Lizzie Bennet.  _ Not  _ Jane Austen,” Daniela says, turning to face him. Her gloved fingers dance along the rim of her wine glass. She’s smiling, though. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots Caroline and Stefan dancing. “We should dance.”

 

“We should,” Damon says, not moving. “As friends, of course.”

 

“Oh, yeah. Of course.” 

 

It had been like this for the past few weeks; circling, orbiting about one another. They weren’t  _ not  _ friends, either - they did start out as such, anyways. Their banter had come back to them, as if it could be summoned through muscle memory. And they talked like they used to, all long walks and laughter. 

 

Daniela had new friends, too. Bonnie and Caroline drew her into their group. Her fear that she was a replacement of Elena was stamped upon the first day of their return to the Real World. They assured her that she was cool enough as she was and that Elena would have loved her, as well. 

 

Then there was the matter of old friends. 

 

Roman Capulet, Daniela’s cheery friend from Italy, came barreling back into her life the week prior. He had rejoiced at the news of Evan’s death.

 

“I never liked that bloke, so I sincerely thank you, sir,” he declared over drinks with Damon, with whom he seemed to only butt heads over the ending of  _ Inception _ . 

 

He was supposed to have left two days ago, but lo and behold, the blond was spinning about the dance floor with a redheaded witch. Daniela nearly laughs as the witch gives him a strange look, bewildered by his enthusiastic movements. 

 

“I thought we were going to dance,” Damon says, and Daniela looks up at him. 

 

“I thought we were going as friends,” she counters, and he grins. 

 

She was glad to see Damon having fun. Nobody had forgotten what Evan had shared moments before his death. His soul had been freed from the Shadowland only by tormenting another’s. Little Lina Salvatore’s soul was trapped so long as her body lay asleep. 

 

They searched the whole town. 

 

They even looked more closely into Evan’s chaos of a life. He had been the nephew of the man Daniela’s father had murdered, or thought he had murdered. Erlito had lived and taught hatred to Evan as a boy, who grew up and assisted his uncle in the double murder of the Augustes. It was only when he met Daniela, disguised as a distant relative, that the young alchemist’s trajectory shifted. 

 

He wanted someone to match his dark heart. 

 

They looked in his childhood Florentian home. They looked in all his scattered pockets of ‘homes’. 

 

Damon was growing restless. 

 

A night out would do him some good. 

 

The music slows as Daniela leads him onto the wooden floorboards. They have not danced since they were children, but they move as if they have been dancing together all along. She flashes Caroline a quick smile as they pass the blonde and Stefan. 

 

A girl is singing on stage, her voice throaty and full.

 

“Who are you supposed to be?” Daniela gestures toward Damon’s suit.

 

“Myself,” Damon shrugs. “Figured that was monstrous enough.”

 

“ _ Damon _ -”

 

“Relax, I was kidding,” he laughs, smiling. “I was attempting a James Bond.”

 

Daniela leans back and whistles.

 

“Not bad, eh?”

 

“I was going to say, ‘Weak attempt’, actually.”

 

“Rude,” Damon replies as he twirls her. Daniela’s hair tumbles out of its bun. He blinks and takes one strand. 

“Okay, Peeta,” she says, rolling her eyes.

 

“I’m - what? Pita? Why are you talking about bread -”

 

“No,” Daniela sighs. “Peeta. Peeta Mellark.” At Damon’s blank stare, the brunette’s shoulders sag. “You didn’t read them? You said you did!” 

 

“Uh,” Damon says. 

 

“ _ The Hunger Games _ ,” Daniela supplies coolly, and finally, Damon’s eyes light up with recognition at the name. 

 

“I watched the movies,” he says defensively and Daniela sighs even louder. “The movies were good!”

 

“You’re  _ such _ a disappointment,” Daniela says dramatically as they sway together. 

 

“Oh, I know,” Damon replies. She shoots him a look. “Joking.”

 

“You’ll find her,” she says. “You know that, right?” 

 

“I know,” he says, his voice not at all convincing. 

 

_ October 31st, 2015 - 1 hour later _

 

Bon Iver’s  _ Skinny Love _ sounded great when it was sung by Birdy and sounded greater sung by the girl on the stage. She was accompanied by a guitarist with a scaly mask and bright, golden hair. Daniela closes her eyes. 

 

“ _ And in the morning I’ll be with you and it will be a different kind _ ,” the man sang into the microphone. His voice was hoarse, like the girl’s. 

 

Dani presses her back against the wall. Damon has gone to get them  drinks. The song fades into another but the man hops off the stage and approaches her, his teeth shining underneath the dim light. 

 

“You really like that song, huh?”

 

Daniela opens her eyes. 

 

“Yes,” she says slowly. Cautiously. 

 

“What’s your favourite  _ Bon Iver  _ song?”

 

“Oh - I don’t - really listen to him - them - see, I don’t even know -”

 

“You should listen to  _ Blindsided _ ,” the blond says softly. “It’s lovely. Are you - hey, are you Lizzie from  _ Pride and Prejudice and Zombies _ ?” Daniela perks up and smiles, nodding. “Hey, that’s sick! I loved the comic. Did you hear, there’s a movie coming out next year?”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Daniela replies, voice warm. “They’ve cast someone I don’t know as Darcy, though, so I’m unsure how I feel about that -” 

 

When had they started walking outside?

 

The blond is kicking at some pebbles. They are strolling in the forest, when seconds before, they had been inside and there had been the comforting sound of other people’s voices -

 

“Do you think yourself as heroic as Lizzie?” The blond is saying, his voice suddenly gravelly. 

 

“I,” she starts, her eyes flying up to the scaly mask, which wasn’t a mask at all.

 

Evan’s green eyes glittered in the darkness.

 

_ October 31st, 2015 - 2 hours later _

 

She woke up to the sound of screaming. Sniffling, too. Someone was crying. Evelina doesn’t open her eyes. Not yet. Did someone else come for her? Was it Jonathan Gilbert? He always creeped her out, but tonight, there was something ablaze in his eyes when he rambled on about the vampires. 

 

Vampires.

 

Katherine looked feral, sprawled out on the floor like that. 

 

She had cried out and her brothers did not hear her. Her father did not hear her. Damon and Stefan had been cursed forever. 

 

Evelina ran out into the woods until she couldn’t hear any of them anymore calling out that wretched name. Her vision was shrouded by the mist of tears. Her brothers had been the only ones to see her and now they might die for loving a monster. 

 

A thought invaded her then. 

 

Was she the monster for not finding in Katherine a piece to love? She had wanted so badly to believe in it, the act the woman put on. Since Daniela Auguste left to live with other family, Damon had been different. He tried too much. Tried what, Lina could never really name, but he put much more effort into being different. 

 

Thinking of her brother hurt. 

 

Evelina decided to sing instead. She sang a lullaby her mother used to sing to her as a baby. At least, that’s what the servants told her of the song. It was about a bird in a tree who did not know how to fly. Nobody wanted to teach them. 

 

“Hello,” someone said, stepping out of the bushes. Evelina stopped singing. 

 

And she did not scream.

 

The woman’s screams had woken her. Evelina flinches and finally opens her eyes, sitting up. There was a shadow against the wall across from her, crying and bleeding. Lina did not feel afraid. She felt very, very awake. 

 

“Who did this to you?” The girl hops off the slab she had been sleeping on. They were in a small hovel. A cottage of a cottage. There was one window and it was drowning in cobwebs. The woman looks up sharply and gasps. “I won’t hurt you,” Lina says, offering her a tentative smile. “I can go grab help, if you want -”

 

“ _ Evelina _ ?”

 

“How do you know my name -” Suddenly the woman is grabbing her and Lina tries to fight her off before realizing the lady was only hugging her. 

 

Had she really forgotten what that was like? 

**Author's Note:**

> The Augustes are very loosely based off of Alyson Noel's The Immortals Series. This was written between September 2015 and now! So basically, season 7 is not a thing.


End file.
